


Under My Skin

by whichstiel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel!Castiel, Body Horror, Canon Universe, Case Fic, Curses, Fae & Fairies, Friends to Lovers, Human!Castiel - Freeform, M/M, Mentions of past Dean/Lisa, Mentions of past Dean/Others, Mushrooms, Pining, Sex Magic, Sharing a Bed, Witches, deancastropefest, ozarks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-27 15:55:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 39,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18742246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichstiel/pseuds/whichstiel
Summary: Dean and Castiel head to a remote town in the Ozarks to investigate a series of mysterious deaths. In each case, the victim mutilates their own skin, gruesomely clawing at it until death stops their hands. They scramble for answers, trying to solve the case before more victims succumb.In this small town, the only motel room available means that they will be sharing a bed. They've never been more aware of each other, or the potential that lies between them. When they learn that an ancient sex magic ritual is the best way to stop the deaths? Well, somebody has to take one for the team.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so happy to release this story into the world! This was written for the [2019 Dean/Cas Tropefest](https://deancastropefest.tumblr.com/). I owe huge thanks to the mods, Jojo and Muse, for running a wonderful and very chill challenge. 
> 
> I am absolutely floored by the astounding artwork of Aceriee. Please soak in its beauty and then head to her **[AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18708172) and [Tumblr](https://missaceriee.tumblr.com/tagged/tropefest19whichstiel) posts** to give her all the love. You guys. These are just gorgeous and so perfect for the story! It was such a pleasure to work with Aceriee on this challenge and I am thrilled to be able to include her art in this story. 
> 
> I owe an enormous debt to my beta reader, [VioletHaze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VioletHaze/pseuds/VioletHaze), who helped me work through the story and cheered me on with everything from serious critique to jokes. Thank you!
> 
> And finally, you never really notice how creepy some song lyrics can be until you're scrambling for a title...
> 
> "I've got you under my skin  
> I have got you, deep in the heart of me  
> So deep in my heart that you're really a part of me  
> I've got you under my skin
> 
> I'd sacrifice anything come what might  
> For the sake of having you near  
> In spite of a warning voice that comes in the night  
> And repeats, repeats in my ear"
> 
> \--Frank Sinatra

Scott Luo woke up with a heaviness on his chest. He woke slowly, moving towards awareness like lake scum wafting towards the surface of the water. The numbers on his alarm clock cast a dim blue light over the comforter. Three-fifteen in the morning. He stared at the clock for a long minute, his mind still swimming out of sleep. 

Heavy. 

His chest felt heavy. 

Grimacing, he batted at the pillowy comforter, pushing it down his body towards his waist. The oppressive feeling of excess weight remained. Scott grunted and shifted his shoulder blades against the mattress, arching his back to dispel the foreign sensation. Except the feeling intensified as soon as he moved. 

As he rocked against the mattress, the sensations on his chest shifted from a simple weight against his lungs to the feeling of pulling skin, like a weight was stuck fast to it. He looked down, eyes focused for the first time since waking, and gasped sharply in the still room.

Suddenly breathless, he pushed himself upright and then clutched at his chest in horror. Something was attached to his skin, under his t-shirt. He could see it pushing up under the fabric in strange, uneven lumps, turning his chest into a cratered field. When he moved, he could feel whatever was attached to his chest move as well, like a massive skin flap tugged by gravity. Under his hand, he could feel soft lumps. Cysts? Tumors? But no. You couldn’t develop a tumor like this overnight. Could you?

More careful now, Scott spread his fingers to hold the lumps under his shirt. Supported, they hurt less than when they sagged under their own weight. He carefully eased out of bed and gingerly walked to the light switch by the door. The sight of his lit room was a comfort - an anchor in reality. He took careful, deep inhales through his nose as he crossed the room to his mirrored closet door. 

His face was pale, his cheeks shadowed, but Scott only had eyes for the visible lumps under his shirt. He hissed at the sensation of too-loose skin as he wrapped both hands around the hem of his shirt and pulled it carefully over his head. 

The shirt dropped to the ground.

Scott stood in front of the mirror, numb for a very long minute until he became dimly aware that he was hyperventilating. With each panicked indrawn breath, the mushrooms growing across the surface of his chest shivered. Up. Down. 

“What?” Scott asked weakly, drawing his fingers across the surface of the mushrooms. There were nine of them, each the size of his fist. Each mushroom had a small button center with fleshy arms that spread out like a star across his skin. He touched one with a fingertip, both relieved and disgusted to discover that he couldn’t feel the touch of his nail on the surface of the mushroom - only the pressure of the mushroom moving against his abdomen from the force of his push. For a moment, he’d imagined that the mushrooms had been formed from his own skin. It was a relief that they appeared to be actual mushrooms, like you might find in a walk in the woods.

The reality was still terrible, though. He contemplated himself in the mirror, feeling oddly lightheaded. Should he call 911? Drive himself to a hospital and ask for “mushroom removal” at reception? Mounting dread forced a strangled laugh of panic from him. 

“They’d call you crazy,” he told his reflection. “Send you home and tell you to take a shower.” The mushrooms trembled as he spoke and his disgusted shudder only compounded the quivering.

 _God_ — he had to get these off his skin. 

Scott pushed his finger into the lowest mushroom a little harder now, shoving it so that it tilted sideways like a leaning ship. There was a moment when he despaired, when the mushroom stayed stuck and his skin seemed to stretch along with the growth. And then there was a faint _puck_ and the mushroom flew off and landed with a dull plunk on the floor. He stared at it, relief flooding him. Then, like a person succumbing to scratching an itch, he pushed both palms against the mushrooms on his chest. They flew off of him one by one, bouncing off the floor and the mirrored door to land at his feet. Blood welled in pinpricks at each revealed disc of flesh. 

With the same frantic hands, he smoothed his palms over his body, twisting to examine his skin in the mirror. There were no more mushrooms that he could see. No more growths. 

“See? Just a little blood, but they’re clear now. Totally normal.” His voice sounded hysterical and he gulped for air, trying to calm himself. _It’ll be fine. Just a little blood. It’s fine._

Scott gulped and slid open his closet door. _Clothes. I need clothes._ The thought of donning his shirt again filled him with revulsion. He was reaching for a simple button-down when he became aware of the itching. It began at his chest where the skin was already red and bloodied. His skin itched on the surface but beneath - in some underlayer - it burned. He lurched where he stood and hangers swung where he half fell into the closet, knocking clothes to the floor. 

Moments or minutes later he found himself on his knees with one hand clenched over his chest like a claw. The fire seemed to spread everywhere, under his skin and growing like agony.

Scott lifted his hands to his chest again and began to scratch, muscles locked and trembling. “Eugh. Come on. Come on,” he pled nonsensically, to nobody in particular. 

He knelt among the scattered mushrooms and scratched like an animal at a festering wound. He could not stop. 

Cloud cover pressed around the driving arrow of the Impala like a smothering blanket. It had been overcast all day but twenty miles out from their destination, the threat of rain manifested as a desultory drizzle. Rain spattered across the windows, fracturing into cracks along the windshield until the wipers washed it away. Dean hummed unthinkingly to the radio, his own white noise machine.

Southern Missouri was an easy drive from the bunker, so he’d coaxed Castiel along for what promised to be a quick hunt while Sam stayed behind and trained with Rowena. It felt odd to be okay with that - Sam working with a frequently murderous witch while he left the state with complete confidence that he’d return to an intact brother. He didn’t trust Rowena - not really. But he trusted Sam enough to make up for it. They’d come a long way since—

“Dean?”

“Huh?” Castiel’s gentle inquiry shattered the silence Dean had carefully cultivated for the last few hours. 

“Penny for your thoughts.” 

Dean glanced to the side and fixated on Castiel’s half smile. “Man, I can not believe you just said that.”

Castiel looked offended in a wounded, over-exaggerated way, mouth rounded in an aggrieved O. “That’s been in use for decades. Centuries, really,” he pointed out in falsely mild tones. “And it’s not even out of the range of a standard lingual shift yet.”

“I’ll show you a lingual shift,” Dean muttered darkly, and then his skin heated as the thought of tongues drifted unbidden into his thoughts. That line of thinking was exactly what got him into this situation in the first place. He coughed and scrambled back to Castiel’s original prompt. “Penny for my thoughts, huh? I was thinking about Sam. And Rowena.”

Castiel’s eyes widened in genuine surprise this time. “Do you really think that might happen?” He hummed thoughtfully and then said, “I suppose she and Gabriel became entangled when they researched in the library together. Stranger things have happened.” 

“Do I think what might—?” Dean scrambled backward in the conversation. “Oh! Oh god no.” He frowned and shook his head. “At least I don’t think so.” He looked back at the road, fixating on the center line curving through the deep, wooded hills. He snorted. “I was just thinking that even a few years ago, the idea of leaving Sam alone to train with a witch seemed crazy. But now— And with Rowena, of all people.” He jabbed a finger at Castiel, catching him in the shoulder. “Now I’m gonna need to steam clean my brain. Thanks, Cas.”

Castiel’s only reply was a soft, triumphant laugh.

Dean settled his hand back on the wheel, briefly clinging to the ten-and-two stability of driving. He longed to roll down the window and let the rain-cool air wash him into a saner state. They passed a sign for an Oak Country Gas and Snacks on the side of the road. It was rusted on the edges, clearly older, but otherwise it seemed legible enough that Dean thought they could gamble on it being open. He flipped on his turn signal.

“We’re turning?” Castiel’s frown was evident in his voice. “I thought Morris was up ahead in twenty miles or so.”

Dean tapped the gas gauge on the dash. “Hunting tip: always fill up before you hit the hunt just in case you gotta get outta town quick.”

“An empty tank would prevent car theft, though.”

“Hey, that was one time!” Dean tapped his finger against the wheel, calculating in his head. “Okay, two times!”

Castiel’s soft laugh filled the car again. “Fine. I suppose a full tank would be useful if there’s a high speed chase?”

“Exactly.” Dean didn’t bother to mention that he was only at a half tank. Baby was a guzzler, but she also held a lot of gas. Enough for a getaway, at least. But he needed a little distance from Castiel. Sitting with him within arms reach for eight hours had proven to be a kind of exquisite torture. Dean had been hard-pressed to not imagine reaching over and pulling Castiel to him, or sliding his hand along his thigh, muscles taut from propping his foot against the console, and allow himself to enjoy the delicious strength of Castiel’s leg.

Dean shifted in his seat. _Yeah_. He needed a quick stop. The turn revealed only trees at first, like seemingly everywhere in the deep folds of the Ozark hills. But the gas station was only ten minutes down the road, at the edge of a small barely-a-town assembly of storefronts and houses. The station was painted a bright, unpeeling white and someone had added a mural of a sunrise over the hills to the near side of the building. 

“I’m gonna take a piss and change.” Dean threw open his door. 

“I’ll get the gas,” Castiel offered and Dean nodded before grabbing his suit from the back seat and heading inside. 

He borrowed the key and used the small bathroom, changing quickly before heading out to check on the Impala and figure out what they owed for gas. Occasional misting raindrops freckled his nose and the bare skin of his hands. Dean inhaled deeply; the air smelled like a pungent mix of leaking gas and wet fields.

This was the kind of gas station that almost felt like home to Dean - on the edge of nowhere and sequestered in a nearly dead small town. The pumps were old with rusted bases and the murk of years smeared across the metal, festooned with hand lettered ‘Pay Inside’ signage. Opposite the gas station was a fallow meadow full of nodding angelica and tall, bright green grass. Everything shone in the half gray light of the ceaseless drizzle, like a gentle oil painting. 

Maybe it was the mood, the shimmer of light, that made him stumble. More likely, it was everything - all the years and fights and dreams - everything that had come before welling up into one moment. As Dean crossed the small lot, Castiel stood and stretched near the trunk of the Impala - stretched, like he was tired of sitting. Like his body screamed with human agony and inclinations. His coat, and the jacket beneath it, spread wide with his outstretched arms. His crisp white shirt pulled tight against his chest, functionally revealing little, but Dean’s imagination more than made up for it. He tripped over his own feet at the sight, like an idiot.

Dean lost track of everything except for the long line of Castiel’s throat growing damp from the rain as his chin tilted towards the sky. After what was probably an indecently long delay, he closed the distance between them and cleared his throat. “All set?”

Castiel opened his eyes and met his gaze with an easy smile. “Yes,” he said, reaching in his back pocket for his wallet. 

“Hey, no, uh...I got it,” Dean said, circling around to read the pump gauge. “Be right back.” He darted back to the station to pay, as grateful as a child for an excuse to rush away again.

When he returned, Castiel had already gotten back into the car. He looked up when Dean swung into the driver’s seat. “All set?” he parroted Dean’s words, one eyebrow jumping in inquiry.

“Yup.” Dean shot his best casual smile across the bench seat. Castiel sat on the passenger side with one knee pressed higher than the other, his left arm resting casually on his leg. His right hand held an illuminated tablet. The light reflected off his damp hair which was slightly disordered from his languorous, full-body stretch outside. Dean’s fingers itched to comb through his hair; to tousle and smooth.

“Good.” Castiel turned his attention back to the tablet in his hands. He scrolled through the case information on the tablet, words flying past in a gray blur. He was reviewing the details before they started their investigation in earnest, just like Dean had taught him. His coat splayed across the seat between them, speckled with water. Dean frowned at the damp fabric. 

He was accustomed to seeing Castiel using grace to scrub the world clean from his clothing, from his body. Maybe that was why the drops on his sleeve were so disconcerting. He yearned to ask Castiel about it, but what would he say? _Hey, I noticed your coat is wet and sometimes you have scratches on your hand or bruises on your chin that don’t heal right away._ Dean shook his head. He was definitely not ready to start that conversation. Not when they still had a case looming ahead of them. And maybe not ever, if his doubts won out. _Hey, Cas, are you losing power or just getting into the human experience? Because I’d like to get into your--_ Yeah, no.

“Dean?” 

Dean blinked as his chin jerked up. He’d been staring at Castiel’s wet coat like he was trying to read an angel tablet. Castiel’s brow perched high; his look said that he’d uttered Dean’s name more than once. “What?”

“I’ve been going through Mariah Jefferson’s email - the morgue tech we hacked into? She just sent out an update on the case.” Castiel tapped at the screen in his lap and frowned at Dean. “Apparently they’re planning on calling in the CDC. They think there might be some kind of disease outbreak causing these deaths.”

Dean grimaced. “I thought those other bodies were supposed to be clawed out ‘freak animal attack’ style?”

“They were. But the latest victim was found in his home. In his _locked_ home. And the autopsy has turned up something strange.”

“Well, strange is our business. Does it say what kind of strange?”

“It does not.” Castiel frowned at the tablet. “This email is very vague. But circling back to the main point, I wonder if our FBI cover remains the best investigatory tactic.”

Dean clicked his tongue thoughtfully. “Well, I got a CDC badge I could use. I don’t have one for you, though. We could take a detour to the next big city with a copy shop but…”

“But that’s three bodies in the last week,” Castiel said. “And if the real CDC is on their way, time may be running short.”

Dean sighed. “Sure sounds like it. Well, we’ll wing it. It’s a small town. You walk in with a suit and a half-baked badge and you’re good to go. Everybody wants to hand off the strange shit if it means they don’t have to touch it. If they haven’t gotten in touch with the feds yet, we can tell ‘em that somebody already did.” 

“The level of self-delusionment people are capable of is truly astonishing.” Castiel said this blandly as he flipped the cover back over the tablet and set it between them.

Dean stared at him, turning his statement over like a stone, looking for double meaning. Finally, he grunted something unintelligible, started the car, and indulged in letting her roar vigorously out of the little station and onto the open road.

They arrived in Morris a half hour later, quiet contemplation between them. 

The town sprawled in a flat plain curving through the hills, bordered by farms pressing up against the edges of the surrounding state forest. It boasted a small grocery store, a tiny hardware and feed lot, and a string of restaurants and practical clothing shops along the handful of blocks that passed for a downtown strip. 

Castiel turned to Dean, gesturing through the windshield to a diner on the right with a stained, blue-checked sign depicting a cheerful, round man sitting at a table. “Should we stop for food?” Dean shook his head and cracked a smile. Castiel had been asking this more often, as though he kept a checklist in the back of his mind titled: _On the Care and Feeding of Humans._ Who knows? Maybe he did actually have a checklist like that. His experience in looking after Jack had seemed to anchor Castiel more firmly in the daily routines and needs of mortal bodies.

“Nah, it’s closing in on 4:00. I’m guessing the morgue might close by 4:30 or so in a town like this. I figure we jump in, get a look at the body, and grab something to eat after?”

“Appetizing.”

Dean laughed. “Dude. Says the guy who doesn’t eat.” He drummed at the steering wheel. “When I’ve got a body in front of me, I’m in the zone, right? When I got a burger in front of me? Whole other kind of zone.”

“I’m glad that works for you.” Castiel sounded serious. “Jack once told me that he couldn’t eat anything pickled for two weeks after finding all those brined appendages last spring.”

Dean smiled sadly and shook his head. “Yeah, okay. I get that.” He pulled into the little parking lot in front of the municipal building. “Hey, look at that,” Dean said, cocking a finger at the squat metal-and-brick sign at the lip of the curb. According to the sign, the building was multi-purpose, housing the police, coroner, city clerk, and library. “One stop shopping.”

“Convenient.” Castiel dug in his coat and pulled out his FBI badge. As Dean parked the car, Castiel slid towards the middle of the bench seat and swiveled the rear view mirror towards him. His hair was still askew from earlier. Dean watched him coaxing his hair back into place until Castiel turned to him, with his brows raised questioningly. “Better?”

“You look nice. I mean, you look fine. Professional.” Dean winked, hated himself for winking, and shoved his way out of the car, mumbling, “Gotta get my other badge.” 

Dean opened the trunk, and took a steadying breath in its shelter. Then he pulled out his canister of fake IDs, sifting through until he found his laminated CDC badge. He clipped it to the inside of his suit coat, slammed the door closed, and met Castiel at the door to the municipal building.

The clock in the lobby had a quivering spring in it. Each minute as the long hand sprang forward, the clock let loose a little metallic twang of protest. Dean dug his thumb into the meat of his knee. There was a knot of scar tissue there - from what sort of hunt Dean couldn’t even recall anymore. He rolled the lump of scarred flesh around the edge of his kneecap and listened to the clock while Castiel sat perfectly still and silent precisely eight inches away from him. 

_God_ , the entire side of his body felt like it was on fire with awareness but Castiel just perched placidly on the molded plastic seating. Dean sank into the seat with a long creak and shuffled back upright again. He moved the scar tissue around. 

The sound of the morgue attendant’s footsteps approaching felt like relief comparable to being pulled from quicksand. Mariah Jefferson strode towards them like a stormcloud. She carried a clipboard on one hip and it dug an aggressive furrow in the puffy blue surgical gown she had layered over her clothes. “You can go in now,” she called out unceremoniously while still several feet away. Her voice sounded a little muffled; she wore a mask over her nose and mouth and all but the roots of her tightly woven braids were hidden under a disposable cap.

Dean glanced at Castiel, unsettled by the brusque young woman. Castiel returned an equally nonplussed expression and rolled his eyes ever so slightly towards the hallway and waiting attendant. Dean’s attention was briefly caught by Castiel’s hands as rubbed them smoothly along his thighs, pushing up to stand. 

Dean cleared his throat like he was his own self-supplied record scratch. “Okay, well. Let’s go.” 

They trailed Mariah to a silver and gray room near the back of the building, abutting a rear exit with a dog-eared sign eclipsing most of the window. The morgue itself was a small space with four silver body drawers laid into the wall and one examining table in the middle of the room. Taxidermied geese spread their wings near the ceiling, feathers brushing the beige ceiling tiles.

The latest victim lay on a silver examining table, pale and pink and torn. 

“This is Mister Scott Luo,” she said. Gum snapped in her mouth, behind the mask. She glared sideways at Dean. Her brows were narrowed in a glare and Dean could tell by the lines of her face that she was frowning fiercely. But her eyes…her eyes held fear. “Tell me this isn’t contagious.”

A shudder ran through Dean, barely concealed. “We don’t even know if it’s my territory. Could still be my partner here’s case. The report we got said the victims were torn open.”

The attendant’s eyes widened. “You didn’t even get the autopsy yet?” Suspicion tinged her voice.

“Of course we did,” Castiel cut in smoothly. “But you must understand that we need to be thorough and rule out foul play. Especially something so—”

The woman bit off a sound of disgust. “Weird? That’s fair.” She handed Castiel the chart under her arm, then pointed towards a neatly organized shelf in the corner. “Supplies are over there. I, uh, recommend suiting up completely. Plus, masks.” She tapped her mouth pointedly. “Doctor Kroup is out today. Says she’s sick but…” Mariah made a face. “I just don’t think she wanted to deal with this.”

She left the room like a lion was chasing her, leaving Dean to look questioningly at Castiel, then at the scrubs on the shelves. Dean shrugged. “Guess we suit up.”

Castiel raised an eyebrow and his look held something like challenge. “I’m an angel, Dean. I have no concerns about human contagion.” He leaned in close. “Besides, I’ll need this.” He tapped the side of his nose with an exaggerated wink.

“Said it before. I’ll say it again. You are so full of shit,” Dean said, unable to prevent a grin from slipping out.

He watched Castiel walk up to the body on the slab, all signs of humor slipping away as he approached the table. Instead, he simply looked curious, intent on unraveling the puzzle in front of him. A sheet covered the victim’s body up to his navel. Castiel leaned in close and, with half-slit eyes, took a long, deep sniff. Dean gagged a little and headed for the shelves of supplies. If his role was CDC in this case, he was damn well going to look the part of the outbreak-wary agent. For the case, of course, and certainly not because the idea of contagion made him want to run out through the back door, do not pass Go, do not contract a horrible disease.

Dean donned a long-sleeved gown, then snapped on gloves and, thinking about the attendant and the fear in her eyes, grabbed a mask as well. Suited up at last, he joined Castiel at the body. 

Castiel was gently prodding at the edges of the torn tissue, running a careful finger along the jagged skin. His brows were knit in consternation, and his apparent puzzlement comforted Dean. Surely if it were some kind of run-of-the-mill human illness, Castiel would have picked up on it right away? 

When he got his own view of the body, Dean screwed up his face in sympathy. “Poor bastard.” Scott Luo’s chest was a wreck of brown and gray tissue. Dean leaned in close and picked up a silver tool, lifting and prodding the loose tissue in the wake of Castiel’s delicate touch. “Definitely looks like this was done by fingernails. Deep, too.” He picked up one of Scott’s hands and examined the tips of his fingers. “Broken nails. Sure looks like he’s the one who did all the gouging.”

Castiel nodded grimly, circling the body like an interested dog. “The wounds are definitely from a human. And I tend to agree. They look like they were self-inflicted. But there’s something strange…” He sniffed again.

“No shit.” Dean grimaced at the body. For deep wounds like that, someone would have had to scratch over and over and over again, tearing away thin layers at a time. The tissue was torn down to fat, or muscle. He flipped open the chart and began to scan through it. “The reports say that the cause of death was bleeding out. Must’ve taken a long time to die.”

“He was alone at the time, or that’s what the police report says. We should check his phone records. See if he tried to call anyone.”

Dean grinned. “Good thinking, agent.” Castiel graced him with a pleased look at that, but his gaze quickly flicked to something over Dean’s shoulder. The small smile he’d been nursing dropped back to a look of grave intent.

“Doctor Kroup estimated the time of death as 3:30 in the morning,” Mariah said. Dean whirled to see the morgue technician hovering at the door again. She pressed against the door frame like the earth might start to shake at any moment. “We couldn’t figure out when he began to tear away at his chest, but judging by the wounds on his hands and the blood loss from his chest, I’d estimate a few hours before he slipped into hypovolemic shock.”

Dean blinked at her sudden tone shift to dissociated clinical interest. “Did the tox report bring anything back?”

“No drugs in his system. No alcohol. But when I helped Doctor Kroup with the autopsy. Well…open him up.” Mariah seemed intent on staying by the door, so Dean took a pair of surgical scissors from the slim metal table and carefully snipped at the sutures holding Luo’s chest closed. It opened like a sprung trap, weighted by the tension of Luo’s body. As it opened, something stringy pulled away from the inner edges of tissue. 

“Look at this.” Castiel pointed at the dull pink strands criss-crossing like cotton candy against the exposed organs. 

Dean choked back an involuntary gag. “What _is_ that?”

Castiel leaned forward with his ungloved hand outstretched before he blinked back at Mariah and belatedly grabbed a metal pick from the tray. “It’s a fungus,” Castiel said finally, in a tone of puzzlement as he shifted the fine floss from side to side over the exposed ribs.

“A what now?” Dean itched to leave the room, but the exit was blocked by Mariah and, curse everything, he was supposed to be the disease expert in their fake-Federal partnership.

“That’s what I _thought_.” Mariah said from behind them in bitterly triumphant tones. “I shipped a sample from this guy away for testing yesterday. The Doc didn’t agree but I’m telling you...that shit is _not normal_. I learned all about kinds of fungus in Evolutionary Bio when I was in undergrad. As far as I can tell those—” She flicked her fingers towards the body. “Are mycelial strands. Actual fungus,” she clarified, watching puzzlement cross Dean’s face. “Growing inside that dude. And inside the two other people. It’s not _normal_.”

Dean turned again to frown at the fine, gray strands. “So this is a...a mushroom?”

Mariah snorted derisively at his restatement, then sighed. “Pretty much.”

“A mushroom.” Dean took a careful step backward, his skin crawling. He felt suddenly grateful that he had suited up in surgical scrubs. Maybe this wasn’t a monster case, after all. If that was true, he and Cas needed to get the hell out of this town. 

Castiel frowned, then began to prod at the tissue again. “This is growing under the victim’s skin - _between_ the layers.”

“Yup,” Mariah confirmed. “From what I could find, it’s largely isolated to the chest cavity. I’m no ‘doctor’ but I’d guessed that it started in the lungs and spread from there.”

“So in your opinion,” Dean summarized slowly, wanting to grab up Castiel’s hand and spin him away from the body. “You think this was some kind of…fungal infection?” 

Mariah glared at him. “Yeah, CDC. Duh. Why do you think I wanted you here?”

“ _You_ did?” Dean asked pointedly.

Mariah shifted uncomfortably. “Well, the Doc didn’t think it was anything but I…” She squared her shoulders. “I know what I’m talking about.”

“Miss Jefferson,” Dean said, backing towards the door in the most casual way he could muster and beckoning Castiel to follow. “We’re gonna need those other case files.” 

An hour later, Dean pulled up to the little motel at the edge of the downtown block. It squatted like a brick against the landscape, one story of rooms encircling a small parking lot. It was the only motel within fifty miles and, by the look of the exterior, had seen its heyday in the mid-twentieth century. He pulled up outside the office at the end of the row and threw the car into park, scrubbing his fingers along the steering wheel and craving a scouring-hot shower. _Fungus. Gross._

Dean waited in the car with the engine idling while Castiel booked a room. When he emerged grimacing, Dean groaned. Castiel opened the passenger door and settled into the seat. “What’s up? Are they full?” He steeled himself for a chilly, cramped night spent in the car, unwilling to spend two hours driving back and forth between a place to sleep and the town, with the case still unsettled.

“No,” Castiel said, looking uncomfortable. “I got us a room. But it’s a single. It’s all they had left.”

“Oh.” Dean, looking for a distraction from his quickening heartbeat, dug a nearly empty jerky bag from the crease of the seat and made a half-hearted attempt to fold over the top before he tossed it onto the dashboard. “That’s fine. Not like you sleep anyway, right?”

Castiel looked at him and with a perfectly neutral expression said, “Right.” He tossed Dean the key to the room and Dean turned it over to read the number. The key had an old off-white plastic fob hanging off of it with a mailbox-grade number sticker plastered to one side of it. Smudges of brown sticker residue outlined the number, the smeared glue the product of hundreds of fingers rubbing across the raised number. Dean dropped the key to the seat between them.

“Lucky number six.” he said, throwing the car into drive and heading to the parking spot just outside of their assigned room. His pulse quickened and Dean tried to calm himself without taking noticeable breaths, hoping that Castiel was preoccupied with something that might preclude him from picking up on his suddenly panicking companion. One bed was fine, right? They were both capable of handling themselves like professionals. Castiel didn’t even need to sleep, so there wasn’t any chance of accidental snuggling. Disappointment dropped a surprise weight into his chest as he parked in the wide space. Dean shut off the car quickly, then snatched up the key before pushing open his car door to escape Castiel’s quiet presence. 

Despite the cracked key, Dean relaxed a little as he approached the room. You could tell a lot about a place by the exterior. He’d been in far too many motels and hotels with crumbling walls and cigarette litter forming a toxic underlayer so dense that archeologists would be able to study it hundreds of years in the future. The exterior of this motel was stucco and brick, the stucco painted a cheerful sky blue that managed to seem buoyant even in the constant gloom of the weather. The sidewalks stretching before the rooms were clean. A child’s tricycle, bright red and polished, guarded a door three rooms down. He unlocked their room and reached inside to flick on the light. 

The room was decorated in forest greens and golds; the wallpaper along three of the walls sported a rich pattern of repeated oak leaves. A taxidermied deer, bald across the nose, loomed over the television set. The solitary bed was wide and covered in a misty-gray camouflage bedspread that Dean supposed must be an attempt on hunter chic. He nodded slowly, approvingly, then turned back to the car to get his bag. 

He whirled to find himself almost nose-to-nose with Castiel. Dean’s duffel bag strap dug into Castiel’s coat. “Oh!” Castiel said, swaying backward, but not actually moving further away. “Your bag,” he said, offering a stilted explanation of his nearness.

“Thanks,” Dean said after a moment of trying to remember how to speak. He held out his hand and Castiel slipped the bag from his shoulder. Their arms crossed and met as the strap transferred between them and Dean slung it over his own shoulder rather needlessly, and plunged into the motel room with his fingertips buzzing.

Dean dumped his bag on the foot of the bed and unzipped it quickly, throwing open the sides. He kept his back turned towards the door, hearing rather than seeing Castiel trail inside in his wake and quietly close the door. He shot a longing look towards the small, unlit bathroom hidden at the rear of the room. _God_. He could really use a shower, for more reasons than he cared to tally. But it was still daylight outside which meant they needed to hit the pavement in search of more clues about the nature of the case. Dean busied himself with laying out the weaponry on the bed.

Witch-killing bullets. Salt shots. A silver knife. A copper knife. A clay vial of holy oil, stoppered with an incorruptible seal. 

“This is real,” Castiel said, and Dean turned to see him standing in front of the television with one hand caressing the deer head, just above the nose.“The desk clerk said this place is popular with hunters. Apparently the state forest around here is good for deer.” 

“And we got the last room in town.” Dean frowned. “It isn’t hunting season.” Spring crawled its way towards summer, but the canopy of the forest surrounding the town was still a bright, new green and sparse. 

“I wonder why the motel is full now?”

“While you did one last sniff—” Dean grinned when Castiel scowled at his teasing tone. “One last sniff of the vic, Mariah told me that it’s been a wet spring and a bunch of homes got evacuated for mold treatments.” He remembered the grim set of her mouth, tense with worry. “She thinks the wet spring and the deaths are related.”

“Hmm. Mold can be hazardous to human health.”

“Understatement.” Dean turned back towards the wide bedspread, smoothing a hand down his tie with a rueful sigh. He longed to change out of his suit and array himself in familiar clothing. This case made his skin crawl. 

“These victims...” Castiel mused in a thoughtful tone, leaning over the bedspread to pick up a sleek black gun and load it with witch killing bullets. His fingers were quick and graceful, skillfully slipping the warded bullets into the chamber. Dean fought the impulse to back away, or press closer. They were just two friends in a motel room. There was definitely no oppressive sexual tension here.

Dean licked his lips into the silence. “Yeah? What about them?”

Castiel squinted at him, coat sleeve brushing against the finer fabric of Dean’s suit coat in slow, electrifying movements as he readied the weaponry. “The wounds are all self-inflicted.”

“According to the coroner’s reports, yeah.”

“And the first two victims were found outside, on the edge of town near the woods. But Luo was found in his home, which according to the map appears to be located near a seasonal stream. Wet,” he explained, at Dean’s knitted brow.

“Yeah. What’re you getting at, Cas?”

“Certain types of molds have been known to bring about hallucinations in humans.” Castiel imparted this line like he was speaking a profound truth. His voice dipped low and his eyes, so intense, never wavered from Dean. 

“Hallucinations?” Dean asked, before his brain jumped into gear and his lips parted in understanding. He patted his chest uncomfortably. “You actually think that _fungus_ drove our vics to mutilate themselves?”

“It’s possible.”

Dean scrubbed a weary hand over his face. Finally, he sighed and said, “Wish we knew for sure. This sure smelled like a witchy case but if it’s just mold…” He couldn’t prevent a little shudder cutting through him. “I’m more than happy to leave this to the locals. Or the real Feds.”

Castiel gently placed the gun back into the duffel bag before picking up the oil flask and giving it an assessing shake. Oil sloshed against the walls of the flask with a high tone. Castiel made a face and sighed before shoving the vessel into the bag. “We’re getting low. I’ll have to fly out soon and resupply.” 

“Better you than me, buddy,” Dean returned flippantly, trying not to fall down into the rabbit hole of worry over the state of Castiel’s wings and general power levels. 

“Well. Where do you want to start?”

Dean glanced towards the window where late sunshine painted the sky golden. He chewed on his lip, thinking. “We should check out Luo’s house - where he was found. Check for hex bags.”

“And then?”

“Depends on what we find. If we don’t find anything, I say we give those other sites a drive-by and blow town.” He wiped his hands reflexively before flipping the silver knife into his hand and slipping it into a hidden sheath along his belt. His stomach burbled and he clapped one hand to his midsection with a short laugh. “Maybe we give that diner a try first? Getting a little tired of jerky.”

“Hmm. Perhaps they’ll have pie.” Castiel’s smile was gentle and amused. He stepped back at last, leaving one whole side of Dean to feel suddenly cool and bereft. Crossing his arms, he leaned against the dresser. Dean looked up to follow Castiel’s progress as his suit jacket slipped back into place over his hip. He found he could not look away; Castiel’s face was unreadable like an unexplored cave, with riches obscured in shadow. They watched each other, and conversation died. 

Finally, Castiel sucked in a swift breath. His head tilted to one side slowly, his gaze unwavering. “Dean,” he said slowly and very quietly. “What are we doing here?”

Dean dropped his eyes to the mossy green carpet. _What are we doing here...after what happened last week_ , remained unspoken between them. He looked away, then reached for the re-filled bag. “Solving a case,” he said shortly, zipping it before bunching it under his arm. “C’mon. We better get going.”

Castiel nodded shortly, his expression inscrutable as he followed Dean out the door. 


	2. Chapter Two

Castiel stood on Scott Luo’s porch with his hands in his pockets, only barely maintaining the illusion of patience. Dean knelt before the doorknob, his tongue peeking out through his lips and his hands swift and sure as he picked the lock. Castiel wanted to knock the door down. But a crash and a broken door would attract unwanted attention even if it was a more efficient use of time. He sighed. Sometimes the human way rankled, but he had to admit that it got results. Castiel inhaled deeply as he waited. Over the smell of drenched soil and almost-rotted leaf litter under the trees, he thought he could smell something growing within the house. It was subtle and quiet, and it set him on edge.

With a gentle _click_ , Dean disengaged the lock and turned the handle. The smell wafted out through the opened doorway, unmistakable now. Even Dean seemed to notice. His nose wrinkled and he stood up from his crouch and led the way inside with his lip half-curled, like a cat smelling something unwelcome. 

“Can you smell it?” Castiel murmured. He glared at the dim rooms visible over Dean’s shoulder. 

“It does stink in here,” Dean agreed, bringing his sleeve up to his nose. “Smells like moss,” he said at the same time as Castiel said, “Smells like decay.”

“I think this is the same fungus that we found within Luo’s body. Which lends some credence to the biological theory,” Castiel continued.

Dean hesitated in the little hallway and looked back over his shoulder, eyes wide. “Dude. Do I need a mask?”

“I’ll cleanse any toxins from your blood,” Castiel assured him before sweeping impatiently past Dean, eyes narrowed and senses extended.

Luo’s house was small, with modestly sized rooms and plentiful windows. The shelves were neatly arranged and very little clutter littered the front rooms, other than fussily tucked throw pillows decorating the upholstered couches. Any impression of perfect cleanliness was quickly dispelled, however. The shades were drawn in the living room, and the light that filtered through the edges appeared almost murky against the light cast by the setting sun. Filaments of dust whirled in the air in lazy spirals as he stalked inside, senses expanding into the space as he began to search for the pulsing presence of hex bags.

“Cas. Take a look at this.”

Castiel glanced towards Dean who had stopped by the nearest drawn curtain, which shielded a wide bay window looking over the front porch. Dean picked up a yellow crystal the size of a grapefruit from the windowsill and turned it to catch the light. “Looks like the whole room is lined with ‘em.” Dean gestured widely and Castiel crossed to the opposite window. He picked up a hunk of rose quartz from the center of the windowsill and twirled it in his fingers, examining the stone. 

All the windowsills in the two adjoining front rooms were lined with crystals of every shape, size, and color. Rose, yellow, and dusty-white caught the straggling light coming in from under the blinds. They lined the rooms like a weak string of holiday lights. 

“Protective barrier?” Castiel wondered aloud, replacing the rose quartz on the wooden sill.

Dean grunted, setting down his own stone and rubbing at his fingers with a disgusted look on his face. “Dusty,” he explained when Castiel lifted his brows. With his other hand, he scrubbed the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable in the house. “These could be a protective barrier,” he agreed finally. “Crystals can be a witchy thing…but not necessarily, you know? Could be Luo was into some woo woo new age crap. Cleansing your aura, or whatever.”

Castiel laughed and skirted the edges of the room with his hand outstretched. Nothing seemed out of place; nothing burned with the cruel, banked energy of a hex bag. “If humans had auras that simply needed an occasional polish, my brothers and sisters would have had a much easier time managing those under their care. Regardless, crystals are an effective magical tool. They’re simply misapplied. It is astonishing how much everyday life is unintentionally shaped by magic.”

“Unintentional, huh?” Dean flipped over couch cushions, sweeping underneath them with practiced efficiency. 

“Contemporary building codes built around ancient principles of water alignment. Things like that.” Castiel ran his hand over the lip of the decorative fireplace mantle, stirring up dust. 

“Seriously?”

“Of course.” On the bookshelf near the entryway, a bundle of herbs rested in a bowl. Castiel’s fingers tingled as he drew near and he reached for the dried bunch of leaves. The stems crunched between his fingers as he lifted it to his nose and sniffed at it delicately. “Glade mallow and African dream root,” he said, setting it back in the bowl.

“Dream root? That’s not something you can buy in your average new age shop,” Dean observed. “Sam had to mail order our last shipment for one of those bunker purification rituals.”

“Mmm. We really ought to start growing that.” When Dean laughed, Castiel protested. “It isn’t difficult! It’s just an herb. Of course, sunlight is a problem.”

“We’ll just get some grow lights. You can grow shit in a closet if you have to.” Dean punctuated that with a rueful chuckle before heading into the next room to rummage around the small dining table in its center. His voice rang dully against spare furnishings in the dining room. “Not that I ever tried. Never stuck around anywhere long enough.”

Castiel wrinkled his nose thoughtfully as he ran a quick hand across the underside of the coffee table. “I didn’t know you had an interest in gardening.”

Dean stopped going through the cabinet looming over the dining table and stared at Castiel across the little hallway with an odd little half smile on his face. “Dude.” He shook his head. “You know what? Never mind. You getting any hex bag vibes? ‘Cause I’m coming up with bupkis.”

“Not yet.” Castiel frowned. “But there is an energy to this house. I’m having a hard time placing it.”

“Bad energy?”

“Mmm,” Castiel prevaricated as he tried to untangle the soft sense of foreboding that seemed to cloak the house. “I don’t know yet,” he said finally. 

“Dining room’s clean,” Dean announced, heading back to the little hall that separated the two rooms. “You think this might be some kind of coven feud? Over territory or just…tearing each other apart? It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had a case where a witch went _extra_ bad and started taking out members of their coven.”

“It’s possible.”

“Right. Well, let’s search the place and see if we can figure out who he was in contact with. You finish down here. I’m gonna check upstairs.” Dean shook his head, heading for the stairs in the center of the house. “Gotta tell you, this part of the job was easier when I was a kid.”

“Oh?” Castiel crossed the room to a low cupboard in the corner. A short stack of magazines covered a sheaf of unopened mail. Castiel picked up a handful of envelopes and began to sort through them. “How so?” 

Dean paused on the stairs like a Roman statute mounting a chariot and Castiel allowed himself a moment of weakness to appreciate the sight of taut fabric accentuating his muscular leg. “People had written address books. Rolodexes. Paper records,” he elaborated with an aggrieved air. “I’m gonna check upstairs. If you find a computer, let me know. Fifty bucks says bedside table.”

“No deal.” Castiel laughed at Dean’s look of betrayal. “I’ve seen _your_ room.”

While Dean tromped up the stairs, Castiel rummaged through the stack of mail. Most of it was unopened but at the bottom, under a sheaf of Fleet Farm advertisements, he found an envelope with scrawled handwriting on the back. His eyes widened as he deciphered the messy writing. “Dean?” he called. “I think I’ve got something.”

“Yeah,” Dean’s answer was muffled between the floors. “Me too. Uh, you better come up here.”

Castiel shoved the envelope in his coat pocket and headed for the stairs, a thrill of alarm quickening his steps. He let his blade slip down his sleeve, the cool metal resting in the cradle of his palm. _Ready_.

The second floor smelled even more strongly of earth, damp and full and wet. The air seemed closer upstairs, more stagnant with the narrow hallway cordoning off closed rooms. A door at the end stood ajar and Dean called out, “In here!” 

When Castiel entered, Dean stood with his legs pressed against the unmade bed. His arms were crossed in tense contemplation of the opposite wall. Castiel rounded the corner and his jaw dropped a little in surprise. “Oh,” he said. “Definitely a magic user.”

Sigils were painted on the bedroom walls in bright blue acrylic, several as small as apples and two as tall as a man. On the two largest sigils, star-shaped mushrooms grew. 

The mushrooms were large and fleshy, with meaty arms extending outward from pale gray, bulbous centers. They grew along the edges of the sigil, aligning and seeming to eat into the paint. “That explains the smell,” Castiel observed. 

“Yep. Calling this a ‘mold problem’ seems like a huge understatement.” Dean issued his reply through tight lips. “Looks like he painted this up here until he ran out,” Dean said, gesturing towards the dresser. Empty pots of paint stood open on the dresser and dots of blue speckled the wooden furniture and floor. 

“It’s difficult to tell with this growth,” Castiel leaned in close and then reached up one hand to trace a break in the sigil bridged by waxy shoe polish. “But these look hastily executed.” He glanced down the wall. The same star-shaped mushrooms speckled the sigils and crowned the walls. “They’re protection sigils.”

“Fat lot of good they did, too.”

“Mmm.” Castiel paced the line of the wall, leaning in to examine the mushrooms. He prodded one experimentally and it wobbled under his touch. 

“Okay, that’s just gross,” Dean said, but he joined Castiel in his closer examination. 

“Not gross.” Castiel rolled his eyes. “Interesting, though. These mushrooms are scattered, but they look like they’re concentrated on the lines themselves.” Where he pushed against it, the mushroom felt stiff, with its flower petal pieces bobbing dully against the plaster wall. “It’s definitely alive and— Oh!” As he pushed at the mushroom, it coughed out a burst of spores from the central pod. Castiel exhaled sharply as the contents spilled into the air and tickled at the edge of his nostril. He rubbed at his nose, surprised. “That was unexpected.” He looked to the side, amused to see Dean suddenly several feet away. He grinned and lifted a brow. “I promise to heal you of any ailments,” he said solemnly, with only a trace of mockery. 

Dean’s expression displayed a rictus of horror better suited to a dripping ghoul. “That’s just nasty. What the hell is that?”

“Fungal spores,” Castiel said, pushing at the large mushroom again, so that more spores spilled from it. “A healthy specimen.” He rubbed at the substance between his fingers. It felt coarse and almost insubstantially light. “Apparently my touch triggered their release.”

“Awesome.” Dean stayed back a little, taking in the wall. He gestured to the largest sigil. “You ever seen anything like this?”

“Like these mushrooms? Aside from useful magical properties, I confess I don’t know much about this planet’s plant communities. It’s intriguing that they’re growing along these lines. Almost as if…”

“They’re feeding off of them.”

“You know,” Castiel nodded slowly. “I think you’re right. That makes no sense, though. Protective magic, like these sigils, is designed to repel…well…everything. It’s extremely hostile towards magical influence and I should think that would extend to the energy produced by intrusive living matter.”

“So that shit shouldn’t be growing there.”

“No.” 

Dean approached the sigil again and leaned close, peering at the wall. “Looks like the wall’s a little cracked here,” he said, pressing his hand against the plaster. It immediately crumbled inwards, exposing a fusty hole under the sigil. White strands crisscrossed the broken plaster like tufted hair. He sighed and swiped his hand along his jacket. “Great,” he groaned, digging into his pocket. When Castiel shot him a questioning look, he said, “Gonna send this to Sam. See if he or Rowena can make heads or tails of it.”

“Good idea. Maybe Rowena has seen this before. She’s dabbled in, uh…” Castiel stopped speaking, acutely aware of stepping into dangerous territory. 

Dean simply rolled his eyes, though. “Fucking witches,” he muttered, punching the keypad on his phone. 

Castiel shook his head at Dean’s ire. “It bothers you,” he said. “Rowena teaching Sam to harness his powers.”

Dean dropped his chin dramatically. “I didn’t even know he still _had_ powers. Thought that all went away after… You know.”

“Demon blood may have enhanced them, but it would have no effect on something that wasn’t innately there. A plant cannot grow without a seed or root.”

Dean’s knuckles whitened on the edges of his phone, then he lifted it, holding it high to take a wide photo of the oversized sigils on the wall. He busied himself with his phone for a moment before easing his shoulders back. “Okay. Sent.” He tapped the phone against his leg. “So, we got no hex bags, but we do have witchy symbols, and possibly magic killer mushrooms.”

“That does sum it up, yes.”

“Any theories?”

Castiel looked again at the wall, then around the otherwise normal bedroom. “Nothing that makes any sense. I did find—”

He was interrupted by the sound of a door slamming open downstairs. 

Dean froze and whipped out his gun, turning his chin to the side to catch Castiel’s eye. _Intruder downstairs_. Castiel nodded sharply, then forced his blade into the world. Together they crept soundlessly into the upstairs hallway. 

Whoever had entered the house was not bothering to conceal their presence. Aside from the slamming door, loud footsteps echoed from the interior hallway and something large and heavy dropped to the ground with a dull _thud_. Dean edged down the carpeted hall carefully, pausing at the lip of the stairs to peer down. He glanced back at Castiel and shook his head slightly. _No eyes on the intruder, then_. Castiel gripped his blade and nodded to signify his readiness. He watched Dean’s jaw tighten incrementally. 

“FBI, don’t move.” Dean shouted in a voice both dark and dangerous. He barreled down the stairs, led by the barrel of his gun. Castiel followed, ready to spring against any waiting assailants, or flip his blade and hurl it into the heart of a potential killer.

Instead, at the foot of the stairs, they found a young woman standing by the cabinet near the door, leafing through the stack of mail Castiel had perused earlier. At their entrance, the woman inhaled sharply and her hands flung up while she jumped backward several steps. Her back fell against the wall and she stared at them with wide eyes. Her fingertips shook where she held them in the air. She looked...normal. Afraid.

Castiel held his blade low but ready, his weapon concealed behind Dean. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“I could ask the same of you,” she said with a terrified squeak. She glanced towards the door, clearly gauging whether she could make a run for it. 

Castiel shifted in a calculated effort to intimidate her into stillness, and she whipped her head back to watch them warily again. “Please,” she said, the tremble spreading to her shoulders. “Please, just—”

After a long moment, Dean dropped his gun. He reached for his badge, drawing it out and flashing it towards her. “Federal agents assigned to Scott Luo’s case,” he said. “How do you know the victim?” His voice had modulated lower, centering around calm and professional. _That’s the FBI style_ , he’d told Castiel. _It’s what people want to see. Unflappable_. Tension remained across his shoulders, though. A lowered weapon from Dean Winchester was no guarantee of safety. 

Still, it seemed to work with the young woman, whose hands lowered a fraction. “Um.” Her gaze flicked between them for a moment, her face still gray with shock. “He was my uncle. I was just coming to... To take care of his…” Her face crumpled.

Castiel winced as her misery seemed to crash over the room in a wave. Furtively, he slid his blade back up his sleeve, pocketing it away. “We are…sorry for your loss.”

Dean tossed an inscrutable look back to Castiel, then tucked his gun into the waistband of his pants. “Miss…?”

“Tayla. Tayla Luo.” 

“Tayla. You mind if we ask you a few questions about your uncle?”

She blinked. “No, that’s fine. I’m sorry, did you say FBI? Why is the FBI investigating my uncle?” 

Dean’s voice dropped to something even quieter, edged with sympathy. “Why don’t we sit down?”

Tayla led the way towards the couches lining the edges of Scott Luo’s living room, settling on a short loveseat backing one of the larger crystal-lined windows. 

Castiel sat on the long couch and leaned forward, elbows perched on his knees. “There have been a handful of strange deaths in town. We’re just trying to see if we can find any connection.”

Tayla dropped her eyes to the hands she folded on her lap. “Yeah. I’ve…I heard about the others. Uncle Scott told me.”

“Really?” Castiel asked, sensing a well of information she wasn’t saying. “What did he talk to you about?”

“Just gossip. You know. One of his neighbors died out in the woods. And then the pizza shop owner—”

“Amanda Callaway.”

“Yeah. It just sounded kinda freaky. And he wanted—” Tayla trailed off again, shaking her head and pressing her lips together tightly.

Dean considered her, eyes sharp and voice gentle. “Did your uncle guess something about these deaths? If they might be connected?”

Tayla tilted her head in apparent puzzlement while her mind screamed out _yes,_ nearly as loud to Castiel as a prayer. “No. I mean, he just told me about them. That’s all.”

Castiel pressed his hand against the envelope in his pocket and considered Tayla carefully. “Did you talk about anything else?”

“Well…I’m a botanist? I work part-time at the state herbarium so I have access to a lot of samples. He was sending me pictures of plants. I was actually gonna come here anyway to visit and check ‘em out before… before he…” Tayla sniffled. “Sorry.”

“He was asking you about mushrooms?”

“Yeah!” She furrowed her brow. “How did you know?”

Dean stood up smoothly, running his palms down his thighs. “Tayla, I’d like to show you something. See what you make of it.”

He led the way upstairs and down the hall, swinging the door wide to display the plaster-eating fungus clinging to the wall. Castiel trailed after them, trying to read the emotions rolling off of Tayla. She seemed genuinely torn up about her uncle, but she was still hiding something. His fingers itched to capture her memories himself, but he twisted his hand into a fist. Guilt might be rolling off of her but that didn’t necessarily mean that she was guilty.

As soon as Tayla saw the sigil painted on the wall, she gasped. The surprise and genuine dismay that emerged from her at the sight rocked through Castiel with an almost visceral force. 

“Yeah,” Dean agreed shortly. He was watching her face like a focused hawk, assessing her with narrowed eyes. 

“Miss Luo,” Castiel said. “Do these symbols have any meaning to you?”

“N-no.” Her lie fell like a stone between them. “But this is…” Tayla reached out her hand to touch one of the mushrooms. The mushroom beneath her hand had rusty-brown outer wings with a wide, white mound in the center. “These are something else.” Tayla shook herself, almost as vigorously as a full body shudder. She glanced at Dean, standing with his arms crossed beside her. “My uncle sent me pictures of these. Not…not from his house. I didn’t know they were growing in here. But from around town and the woods. He wanted to know what they were.”

“What are they?” Castiel asked. 

“Barometer earthstars. _Astraeus hygrometricus_ ,” she explained, running a finger along the fleshy appendages splaying out from the mushroom’s center. “They expand in moist conditions and contract when it’s dry. That’s the ‘barometer’ part of their name.” She inhaled. “And it’s really, really…”

“Moist in here?” Castiel supplied. Tayla nodded while behind her, Dean pulled a disgusted grimace.

“They get their name because they’re kind of like a star. They aren’t too common around here, but not unheard of. What’s weird is the size. I have never, ever seen any earthstars get this big. None of the herbarium samples even approach this. I mean, on this wall alone, all of these would be record breakers. And some of the ones Uncle Scott showed to me…” At their confused look, she clarified. “Near Abby Park at the end of Second Street. Uncle Scott found a bunch growing along the trailhead that heads into the woods.”

She plucked at the mushroom and it pulled away easily. As she did so, the wall crumpled away, plaster raining down in a fine powder to the bedroom floor. Tayla and Dean jumped backward, but Castiel took a few steps forward so he could examine the new peach-pit sized hole, imploding plaster all around it. He plucked out a finger-full of fine white fibers and held it up with a questioning look at Tayla. 

“That’s mycelium,” Tayla said, as though it were all perfectly normal and she were exchanging a politely academic discourse. “The part you see,” she held up the earthstar mushroom, “is only the reproductive body of the fungus. The real heart of it is this stuff.” She pointed to the fibers.

“It looks like tree roots.” Dean shoved his hands in his pockets, but he leaned forward incrementally. His initial disgust seemed to be slowly dropping away, too intrigued by the puzzle of the magical mushroom growth. 

“Sort of. Fungus is its own kind of thing. Its structure can span across an entire tree or even an entire forest. It’s made up of branching hyphae and the mushrooms you see are just the part of it trying to reproduce.” She hefted the mushroom in her hand as though weighing it. “I’m gonna have to bag a sample to bring back.” Something like a spark kindled in her eyes. “It’s a record holder so…”

“And why do you think there’s this painted, uh, symbol here? Do you think your uncle did this?”

Tayla’s expression wobbled between fear and interest. She looked away from the symbol and met Castiel’s eye. “No idea. Maybe he was getting into art?” she suggested, weakly.

Castiel drew the envelope out of his pocket and smoothed it with an apologetic look at Dean for the surprise he was about to spring. He held it out towards Tayla. “Do you know anything about this?” 

Tayla looked at the names scrawled on the envelope and, if anything, she looked more distressed than before. On the envelope, six names were written in a list, next to a crudely drawn picture with winding lines that might have been a map. The first name on the list, Beth Anders, had several question marks at the end; the second two names were scribbled out, but still legible: Amanda Callaway and Greg Boyle. They were followed by two other names Castiel didn’t recognize, and Laurie Kroup, which set off a stinging feeling of recognition. 

“Is this supposed to mean something to me?” Tayla asked in a wobbly voice.

“Do you know any of these people? Do any names seem familiar to you?” 

Tayla looked at Castiel and the door to her mind closed, as though she finally realized that she was dealing with someone a bit more formidable than the FBI. She chewed at her lip before nodding slowly. “These two people,” she indicated the scrawled out names, “died last week. Uncle Scott told me about them. As for everyone else?” She shrugged, her expression solidifying into stone. “No idea.”

Dean frowned at the envelope, looking between the paper and Tayla. Finally, he jerked his chin minutely towards the bedroom door and Castiel nodded in understanding. He held out his hand for the envelope and stowed it back into his pocket when Tayla handed it over. They’d get nothing more from her today. “Thank you for your time,” he told her and fumbled in his pocket for the FBI business card Sam had printed up for him. He pressed it into her hand. “Please call us if you think of anything else.”

“And Miss Luo?” Dean said as pointed as a viper. “Don’t leave town just yet. We may have more questions for you during our...investigation.”

“She’s lying,” Castiel said as they got into the car. “She knows something about those protection sigils.”

“Ya think?” Dean groaned and gestured towards the lowering sun. “What d’you think? Should we check out that other mushroom site she was talking about at the park? Or where the other victims were found?”

“We should have a look at those other sites. If this fungus is related to these deaths, that’ll be a quick indicator.” He smoothed out the envelope and held it out towards Dean. “I’m sorry I sprang this on you.” Castiel frowned. “But Dean, two of our victims are on this list. And this one,” he pointed at the final name. “Do you think that’s any relation to the Doctor Kroup from the morgue?”

“Small town so, probably.” Dean rolled his shoulders. “Let’s hit those sites and grab some dinner, then we can jump online and try to dig up some info on these people.” He laid the envelope on the seat between them and smiled, knocking his knuckles briefly against Castiel’s hip. “You did good work, Cas.”

Warmth bloomed in Castiel’s chest and he returned Dean’s smile, searching for the words he wanted to say. He finally settled on a simple, “Thank you, Dean.” 

“Yeah.” Dean nodded as though they’d held forth a far more vigorous exchange, then started the car, and drove towards Second Street, and the park. 

Abby Park was a small green space at the end of the road, dotted with picnic tables and a metal swingset that creaked gently in the breeze. The rain had stopped for now, but the ground was still damp with wet leaf litter and mud. Castiel and Dean stalked the perimeter of the park, before walking a little ways down the trail. Mushrooms dotted the trailsides, but they were several feet in before Castiel spotted the first earthstar. “There.” He pointed towards a tree four yards off of the trail. He lifted the diagram they’d copied from the police report on Greg Boyle and held it out to orient the map against the trail. “I think that’s it.”

“Awesome,” Dean said unenthusiastically, and led the way into the fresh spring understory. 

Where the body had been found would have been obvious even without the scraps of police tape tangled in the undergrowth. Earthstar mushrooms grew thickly around the base of the tree trunk. On the ground, approximately where the record showed a perfunctory X for the body, a massive cluster of mushrooms grew, tumbling over each other like they could reproduce Boyle’s body in fungal biomass alone.

Together, Castiel and Dean circled the site carefully. 

“I don’t get it,” Dean said finally, after they had thoroughly examined the bark and surrounding ground layer. “Mushrooms at Luo’s house. Mushrooms here. Is there even such a thing as a hex...plant?” He sighed and dusted off his hands reflexively. “We gotta get those other case files.”

“You think the office is still open? Or can we hack into a computer and get them that way?” 

“Sure. After you, Angela Bennett.” Castiel frowned in confusion. “The Net?” Dean shook his head. “Never mind. Next movie night we’re watching that, okay?” He clapped Castiel cordially on the shoulder, then jerked a thumb back towards the trail. “Let’s head back. Stop by the station and see if they’re open, then go over everything over dinner.” He settled a hand over his stomach. “I’m friggin’ starving.”

The clerk manning the main desk at the police station accepted Castiel’s badge without question and handed over the files in exchange for just a quick signature on a clipboard. This meant that they could head straight to the diner he had spotted earlier. Blue and white flecked cloth covered each table and a sunny yellow daffodil perched in a vase at the center of the table they shared. 

While they waited for their order to arrive, they flipped through the case files. Castiel tapped a photo showing a blood-spattered sheet, which covered the body of the first victim, Greg Boyle. “Look at these.”

Dean leaned across the table, fingers sliding onto the picture to nudge it to the side. Their hands brushed and Dean left his fingers there, warm and solid and deliciously calloused. “What’m I looking at?” he asked, voice dropped a little too low to be casually quiet.

Castiel had to mentally claw his way back to the case. His chest felt tight, his grace coiled like it was anticipating…something. Something Castiel could not name, but _craved_. “There weren’t any mushrooms when his body was found. See?” He pointed at the bare trunk. “But now they’re all over.”

Dean slid the photo over to his side of the table and lifted it, narrowing his eyes to peer closely at the tree. “You think those things grew after he died?”

“That would explain why none of the case files say anything about unusual fungal growths. In the woods that might be excused, but in Luo’s house?”

“Yeah. That’s not the kinda thing you miss.” As it was, the sigils were recorded in Luo’s police investigation file as _Exhibit 12: Mural._

Dean flipped the photo over as their waiter approached with their food. He smiled his thanks and picked up his burger immediately, groaning as he inhaled its fragrant aroma. “Oh,” he shook his head and smiled fondly at the burger. “I can tell we picked a good place already.” He took a bite and closed his eyes in apparent ecstasy. 

Castiel picked up a french fry from his own plate and drowned it liberally in the vat of ketchup served alongside his main course. He plunked it in his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. It was warm and crispy, with a salty bite that, if he concentrated very hard, he could enjoy as a whole, unblemished experience. “These are good,” he remarked, only to look up and find Dean staring at him. “What? Do I have ketchup…?” He ran a finger along his lower lip, intrigued to see that Dean followed the path of his fingertip. Castiel tried it again, running his finger slowly along the soft skin of his lip. “Do I have anything here?” he asked, voice dropping to an intimate murmur. 

“No.” Dean’s response was small and gentle and when his eyes flicked up to catch Castiel’s gaze, there was something soft behind them. “You’re good.” He rested his elbows on the table and began eating his burger like a knight-errant on a quest. 

Castiel ate his french fries in quiet contemplation, assembling questions in the companionable silence that stretched between them. 

When they arrived back at the motel, Dean called Sam, setting him on speakerphone. Castiel perched on the edge of the mattress next to Dean and leaned into him, towards the phone so he was sure to be heard.

At the diner, Dean had texted Sam the photos of the sigils and the strange mushroom growth from the diner and tasked him with researching the problem. So when Sam greeted them with an enthusiastic, “Dude,” anticipation welled in the room.

“What’d you find?” Dean asked, leaning into Castiel with a friendly nudge.

Rowena purred across the line. “Nothing yet, dears. But this is an intriguing puzzle you’ve found.” She sounded delighted. 

“I pulled our books on botanics and herbology. Maybe there’s something there about, I dunno, cursed mushrooms or something?” Sam sounded enthusiastic, his scholarly inclinations clearly piqued.

“Do you boys still suspect a witch? Any sign of hex bags or cursed objects?” Rowena trilled the words.

“No sign of hex bags.” 

“Sorry, dear? Come again?”

Castiel shook his head at the phone and leaned in closer so he might be heard. His shoulder pressed into Dean’s chest as he did so and he felt Dean startle at the touch. He almost pulled away, but Dean pressed forward into his touch, ever so slightly. “Um,” Castiel rummaged for his train of thought. “We didn’t find any hex bags. But there’s a power at these sites. I can’t quite identify it. Like…like concentrated static.”

“We were looking at those protection sigils,” Sam said. “You said they’re not at the other sites?”

“Nope.” Dean bit off the end of the word with an exasperated pop of his lips. 

“I’m well acquainted with that sigil. It’s just as you say - a common protection symbol used to ward off bad intent.” Rowena scoffed. “It doesn’t even work most of the time. That’s a real mark of amateur magic, if you ask me.”

“Could this be a spell gone wrong?”

“Hmm, perhaps. Though where they might stumble across such a thing is beyond me. You didn’t by any chance discover any eldritch spell books lying about? Perhaps a lovely old scroll?”

“Rowena,” Dean said, rolling his eyes hard enough to shift his shoulders. He whispered an aside to Castiel, “Now I remember why I worry.”

Castiel looked up to share in his amusement when memory overtook him. Just days earlier he had sat like this with Dean, their bodies pressed intimately together as Dean whispered into his ear. Castiel sat back quickly and at Dean’s quizzical look, shook his head. “Tomorrow we’ll try to track down the others on Luo’s list. See if we can figure out what connects them. In the meantime…”

“We’ll try to figure out what kind of spell makes mushrooms grow inside bodies. We’re on it, guys.” Sam clucked his tongue with exasperation and corrected, “ _I’ll_ check it out. Rowena’s gonna go…”

“Hit the bar. Maybe pick up a nice young man.” There was a pause. “What? It’s been a while. Unless you’re offering?”

“What? No, I—”

Dean laughed silently, his earlier unease apparently dissipated at Sam’s palpable shock. When they hung up, Dean tossed his phone to the table, then settled on the bed with a gusty sigh. He toed off his shoes, then scooted back up against the headboard, patting the space beside him. “Give me an hour to chill,” he said, picking up the remote from his bedside table. “And then we can start researching that list.” He flicked on the television.

Castiel looked at Dean’s hand, clearly indicating where he could sit. “Okay,” he agreed finally. “Sounds good.” He kept his shoes on, choosing instead to walk around the bed and settle next to Dean with some deliberate space between them. He kicked his feet up onto the bed and crossed them at the ankle. “Anything interesting on?”

The motel had a small array of channels, but one of them declared itself Classics TV, which Dean settled on with a satisfied grin. They watched _Gilligan’s Island_ in silence for a while. Finally Castiel gathered his courage as the programming switched to a garishly loud commercial break. “Dean. Can we talk?”

Dean stilled beside him, though his tone stayed light. “What’s on your mind?”

“The movie we saw last week.”

“Axe Master IV? What about it?”

“Dean,” Castiel couldn’t stop the steely reprimand from leaching into his voice. “I want to talk to you about what happened in the theater.”

“Ah.” Dean looked down at the remote lying by his leg and then, after a pause, lifted it and hit a button to mute the sound. Though lights from the screen flashed in the room, it was now quiet enough that Castiel could hear Dean’s thundering heartbeat. “You’re gonna have to get more specific,” he said. “That movie was…a lot.” 

Castiel watched Dean’s hand, tense on the remote control. He held himself rabbit-still, spooked but not to flight. Not yet. Castiel calculated his strategic options and finally he _leaned_. 

Castiel leaned into Dean until their arms pressed together, shoulder to shoulder. He turned his chin until his breath dusted the stubble on Dean’s cheek and grazed his ear. “You were talking through much of the movie,” he said. “Like this.”

“Sure,” Dean sounded breathless. “It was loud. And…and I needed to tell you about the movie.”

“Hmmm.” Castiel dropped his voice lower, pleased at the way heat seemed to spike along Dean’s body, radiating warmth outward like a sun. He thought of that evening. The way Dean had been bowed towards him all night, whispering movie trivia to Castiel. The way he’d leaned closer and closer, like he was drunk with closeness and the warmth of their brushing shoulders. 

Castiel remembered the way he’d tilted his own head and let his chin tip backwards, exposing more of his ear to the heat of Dean’s breath, until they were so close that if Dean moved his chin just right then he would scrape up against the soft plane of Castiel’s throat. 

It had been intoxicating. Jarring. Castiel had half-turned in the darkness and their noses brushed and Dean…Dean’s chin had tilted for too long, lips parted just enough for his breath to warm Castiel’s lips. They’d waited there while the movie raged on in the distance and Dean had swayed forward just an inch. A centimeter further. And then… 

And then Dean had settled back in his seat, leaving Castiel to do the same. 

“I thought you might kiss me,” Castiel said now, throat tight and mouth hot with longing.

Dean didn’t move an inch. He simply sat there, a tensed bowstring. “Yeah, I—” He shook his head and his cheek brushed against Castiel’s lips. They both jerked at the electric touch and Castiel shifted away. He’d calculated on unsettling Dean, but it seemed he’d done a more than adequate job on himself as well. 

Dean shifted ever-so-slightly away. 

Despair dropped like a hot stone into Castiel’s gut. “I shouldn’t have brought it up,” he said brusquely, and pushed himself to place a gap between them. 

Dean’s sigh came out more like a groan. “Look. I know…we gotta talk about it. We gotta…” He dropped the remote on the bed. “I’ll be honest with you, man. I’m not ready to talk about it yet. Can we just—? I just need a little time. To think.”

“Oh,” Castiel said, nodding far more than necessary. “Of course. I’ll just—”

“Cas.” Dean reached for his hand and pulled it to him. The shock of his warm fingers removed any other thought from Castiel’s head. “Please,” Dean said, in such an intimately low voice that Castiel found himself entirely unseated from any further confrontation. 

“Yes,” Castiel fixated on Dean’s thumb, which was now swiping a gentle line across the back of his hand. “We need to do research,” he said dumbly.

“Yeah. Research.” Dean’s reply mirrored Castiel’s in breathless upheaval. 

Dean flicked off the TV and swung his legs off the bed. The loss of his nearness felt for a moment like a limb being yanked from its socket. He must have flinched, because Dean looked pained as he walked to the table and grabbed the tablet and his laptop. He handed Castiel the tablet and then stayed him with one hand on his shoulder when Castiel shifted to get off the bed. “You’re fine, man,” he said gently. 

Dean rounded the bed and climbed onto the other side again, bunching his pillow against the headboard and settling the computer on his lap. He looked at Castiel one more time, face utterly unreadable, and then quirked a small smile. “Research?” he suggested, opening his computer.

Castiel watched him for the space of several seconds before nodding, more confused than before. Dean was his friend, both beloved and familiar…but tonight he felt strange and new. Castiel wondered what the next day would bring, and if they ever would talk about what had happened at the movie, or had almost happened here on this all-too-intimate bed. Maybe what passed between them would disappear in the light of day, an ephemeral thing and nothing more. He flipped open the tablet cover and thumbed it on. “Research,” he agreed, and tried to lose himself in the hunt.


	3. Chapter Three

Dean woke to a cough rattling through the otherwise quiet motel room. He peeled open one eye begrudgingly. The room was mostly dark, but light leaked in around the edges of the cheap curtains, casting an orange halo along the wall near the door.

“Cas?” he asked, immediately sliding his hand under his pillow for his gun, because that sure as hell didn’t sound like Castiel. 

“Um.” Near the window, perched on the sole uncomfortable chair, Castiel blinked at him sheepishly, one fist still raised over his mouth. “Sorry,” Dean blinked as he came into focus in the dim light. Castiel’s face twisted in surprise, mouth lopsided and eyes wide.

“You okay?”

Castiel nodded. “Something…dust in my throat. I’m fine.”

“Mmmph,” Dean muttered before deliberately re-planting his face into his pillow. “‘Kay.” He’d caught a glimpse of the clock on the way back down. Two in the morning. They were still four hours from sunrise. Dean breathed into the fabric. He was awake now - but teetering on the edge where he could fall back asleep or be awake for another twenty hours. Hell, if he woke up now he and Cas might as well go plunging through the woods with a flashlight until dawn broke. He rubbed his nose across the pillow before arching back up from it and turning towards Castiel’s silent vigil by the door. “What’re you doing over there?”

“Reading?”

“Dude, that chair sucks.” Dean slapped the mattress next to him with sleepy belligerence. The air between them felt so cold. So empty. In the very early morning hours, the distance felt unbearable. “C’mon. It’s fine.” Castiel didn’t move and Dean deigned to lift his head slightly for emphasis. “You. Bed. Now.”

Castiel did move then, standing from the groaning chair and moving to the other side of the bed. He settled gingerly on top of the covers, then arranged the pillow behind his back. The dimmed screen of the tablet lit his face in soft blues. He let out a small sigh.

“Better?”

“Yes. Thank you, Dean.”

Dean buried his head back into his pillow, quashing the surge of guilt he suffered at Castiel thanking him for…for what? Treating him like a person? Besides, he should be thanking Castiel for putting up with his shit all these years. Perversely, he wanted to burrow his nose into Castiel’s hip and lose himself in that half embrace. Instead, he consoled himself at Castiel’s nearness. 

“‘Night, Cas.” 

“Sleep well, Dean.”

Dean closed his eyes and curled his hands under his shoulders. In less time than he expected, he was asleep. 

When he woke up, daylight unmistakably coursed past the curtains. In the straggling morning light, the room felt more like a forest with the oak leaf wallpaper serving as a gentle canopy to the surrounding wooden furniture. Dean blinked up at the mounted deer head and sighed. 

Fabric rustled immediately to his right and Castiel set down the tablet between them, a scanned book from the bunker open on the device. “Did you sleep well?” He seemed closer, somehow, and Dean wondered if he had wriggled nearer to Castiel in his sleep. 

“Mmph. You think there’s anywhere in this town I could get some coffee this early?”

There wasn’t. 

By the time Dean got dressed and shambled outside, the continental breakfast at the motel office was still a full hour away from opening up. Dean could see it through the window: an eternally set up “buffet” of oatmeal packets and granola bars, complemented by a coffee maker and paper cups. Dean groaned dramatically in front of the locked door, and returned to the motel room empty handed, save for a paper flyer for the Sunshine Diner - “Opens at 7 a.m.!”

“I’m gonna take a shower,” he announced. 

Castiel looked up from the printed book he’d pulled out of his bag as soon as the lights turned on. “And then breakfast?” he asked. 

“Yup.” Dean hesitated, because there was something…off about Castiel’s comment. Something like desperation. Hunger. Dean leaned heavily against the doorframe, still bleary and caffeine-deprived. “Are you eating?” he asked bluntly.

Castiel shrugged, an elaborately manufactured move. “Yes,” he said simply. “I’d taken to sharing breakfast with Jack and it’s…” He met Dean’s gaze for only a few more seconds before his eyes seemed to shutter and flee the conversation, turning back down to his book. “It’s something I have _chosen_ to enjoy.”

There was a beat of silence before Dean jerked his head in an awkward half nod. “Okay,” he said, dumbly, and backed into the bathroom. 

In the privacy of the bathroom, he stripped off his clothes, batting away his mental fog to try and figure out what the hell that was supposed to even mean. _Something I have chosen to enjoy..._

He revisited their conversation from the night before and, as he stepped under the warm spray of water, he shuddered. He _had_ almost kissed Castiel that night at the movies. They were both under no delusions about that, apparently. Castiel had seemed so matter-of-fact about it last night, leaning into Dean on that close bed in their quiet room. 

The promise of it all lit Dean up like fireworks and it was almost enough to overcome his Shelob-level cobweb of fears. Castiel was his best friend, his closest ally. He was his savior, and Dean had helped him fall in a terribly unequal exchange. How many times did Dean have to tell someone he was poison before they’d believe him and act to save themselves? He wanted to push Castiel up, push him away if that might keep him safer. He wanted to keep Castiel close - closer than he’d ever let anyone get. 

Thinking about Castiel’s heat - his lips - his burning gaze - was too much. So Dean, with too much time to kill and too much proximity to handle particularly well, let his hand travel southward.

It wasn’t the first time he’d masturbated while thinking about Castiel. Hell, that was part of the problem, or maybe _the_ problem. It had started with a dream - god - _years_ ago now. Just some stupid erotic dream he’d had in a shitty motel room while his dick tried to grapple with being too far away from Lisa’s bed. Since then, he’d rarely indulged in that conjured fantasy of Castiel pushing him up against a wall, his warrior hands holding Dean firmly so his lips could claim the territory along his throat to suck on his earlobe. His thick thigh would be pushed between Dean’s, working him already until Dean was moving, dragging against him. 

Sometimes in the fantasy Castiel took him against the wall; he would reach down and Dean’s pants would magically open while Dean rode his thigh. Sometimes the wall became pillows and Castiel - still inexplicably dressed in the trench coat and nothing else - would take him from behind and growl the dirtiest things in his deep gravel voice. It had always been fast and hot and dirty in his fantasies; he couldn’t afford to let himself linger on the thought of kissing Castiel, or making love. 

Dean had only taken guilt-free pleasure in the fantasy when he’d succumbed to the Mark of Cain’s demonic curse. It had seemed, at the time, to be especially fitting - like he was dragging Castiel down with him. Yet even then he’d kept the fantasy internal, letting it fuel his sexual play with others. Afterwards…well, after he came down from the demon high, Dean had stoppered that fantasy for a long time.

But that was all child’s play compared to his recent bank of daydreams. Honestly, it was a wonder that nobody ever called him out on staring at Castiel for what must be minutes at a time, lost in a fantasy in the worst situations. Because now he was full-on indulging in them. Now, he welcomed fantasies of Castiel fucking him, or being fucked, or just…holding him in bed and talking about hunting and cars and movies. After losing Castiel and nearly losing himself time after time after time, he’d given up trying to deny it. He was a man, and he was allowed to want his best friend. 

As warm water coursed over his shoulders, Dean allowed himself to think about Castiel getting undressed before standing nude in front of Dean and kissing him gently. He allowed himself to picture Castiel brushing his jacket off his shoulders and gliding his fingers up his chest and under his shirt to tease at his nipples. He indulged in the almost tangible feeling of Castiel’s hands shoving down beneath his waistband to grab his ass, pulling them together so that they could feel each other, both hard and wanting. 

Dean let his eyes slip closed and his hand moved to stroke himself firmly, quickly. No nonsense, here. Only fantasies of Castiel unbuttoning his jeans and pulling down the zipper, pushing his pants down his hips so he could rub his hand along Dean’s straining dick, soft-clad in his underwear. He pictured the absolutely normal nothing-to-see-here scenario of Castiel dropping to his knees and pulling the band of Dean’s underwear down to free his dick. Castiel licking his lips and grinning that wide, irrepressible-when-it’s-there grin of his before sinking down and—

Dean came hard, shoulders hunched and one hand pressing against the shower wall in support. He bit down on even the slightest moan, and wondered if Castiel’s super-human hearing could pick up on his heartbeat, racing post-orgasm. He blinked in the pounding water as his heart thudded back to normal.

After some semblance of steadiness returned, Dean began to wash himself with the same no-nonsense focus. He wanted Castiel and in allowing himself to want him in his fantasies, it was starting to bleed over into real life. And, god help him, Castiel just might be interested too. It was a terrifying thought. It was why Dean had found the case and practically ordered Sam to stay at the bunker so that Dean could get Castiel alone to… to what? 

Dean shut off the shower and reached for a coarse towel from the rack bolted to the wall. The towel brushed off as much water as it absorbed and Dean clenched it against his hair, then scrubbed vigorously to scrape out the water. The rough texture was almost soothing in its prosaicness.

He supposed he’d gotten Castiel alone to seduce him, or that had been the original plan. The moment they’d gotten into the car together, however, Dean had lost every scrap of nerve. Because he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t seduce his best friend who, on top of the layers of gratitude and need Dean had for him, was also an effectively eternal angel who didn’t succumb to human needs. 

_It’s something I have chosen to enjoy on this planet._ Such an innocuous phrase shouldn’t make Dean shudder with desire but— _god_. Were they actually on the same page here? And the more important question: if they were, how could Dean avoid fucking it all up?

Dean dressed quickly, then emerged from the bathroom to find Castiel’s focus lasered in on his phone. He looked up briefly at Dean. “Sam,” he explained, lifting his phone while his thumbs continued to type in a message. 

Dean tossed his shaving bag on the end of the bed and made his way over to Castiel, grateful for the diversion. “Does he have an update for us?”

Castiel nodded. “They’re still researching what might be causing the rampant fungal growth, but there was a recent missing person reported to the, ah, magical community.”

“Missing person? Like…?”

“A witch went missing from this town two weeks ago. She was never officially reported to the authorities, which is probably why it never became part of the Morris PD’s case file.”

“She went missing two weeks ago? Dude, that’s right before the first death.”

“That’s right.” 

“Hmm.” Dean perched on the end of the bed and propped up each foot in turn so he could roll on his socks. “You think she’s still out there? Maybe she’s the one going after these other names on Luo’s list. Assuming they’re all into the craft, that is. ‘This town ain’t big enough for the both of us,’ you know?”

Castiel squinted at his phone. “Maybe. While you were sleeping I did a little more research into the town itself.” He caught Dean’s eye as though seeking retroactive permission. “To look for patterns of magical deaths or reports of strange natural occurrences in the past.”

“And?” 

“I found a few news stories mentioning Morris’s ‘uncommonly good weather and crop yields’ but that was about it. Otherwise, it seems like a perfectly normal town.”

“Good weather and crops, huh?” Dean finished pulling on his socks and stood up from the bed, reaching down to pick up his duffle bag from the floor. He set it on the end of the bed and began to do his usual weapons check. “What, like sacrificial god type of success?”

Castiel shrugged. “Gods usually tend to be a bit more flashy in their proclivities. And the tales endure for far longer. These reports were all more recent, within the last ten years.”

“Eh,” Dean shrugged. “You’re not always gonna find old stuff online. If there was more, we might have to check with the library.” He stared blankly at the wall, conjuring a memory of the sign that had hung on the municipal building door. “Most of that shit opens at nine so we got a little while.”

Castiel dropped his phone to his lap and leaned back in the chair. He brushed a hand through his hair thoughtfully and Dean couldn’t look away. It looked soft and tousled and touchable. “I’d like to go back to the woods. There was something…” He squinted at the blank face of the television, then met Dean’s eye. “We found earthstars growing near the trailhead but I just…I _feel_ like there’s more there.”

Dean finally looked down, zipping up his duffle bag and flipping up the handles. “Well, you know what I always say.”

“Hunting is eighty-percent gut instinct.” 

“That’s right. And you got a good one. Tell Sam the plan and let’s hit the road.”

“And the plan is?”

Dean ticked the points off his fingers. “Check out the woods, track down the good doctor, break into our missing person’s apartment, talk to friends and family.”

Castiel nodded and began to type a rapidly expanding chat bubble into his phone. 

“And if they do figure out what kind of god-witch-whatever we’re looking for, I’d appreciate some tips on how to kill it.” 

Dean hefted the bag to his shoulder and headed out to the car to drop it into the trunk. It was just after seven; the motel office would hopefully be open by now with a pot of piping hot coffee ready to go. He stretched out his arms as he strode to the office, rolling his shoulders and wrists as a way to prepare for the day and whatever unexpected fight might come their way.

As it had the day before, light mist filled the air and beaded on Dean’s skin like sweat. The overcast sky shone with a bright gray light as sun filtered through the persistent cloud cover. Dean grimaced at the wet green surrounding them. Spring in the Ozarks sucked, if this weather was anything to go by. It almost seemed preternaturally gloomy which would, at least, lend a little credence to the small god theory. Some god-level creature throwing a weather tantrum wouldn’t exactly shock him.

By the time Dean returned from the office, Castiel sat waiting in the passenger seat of the Impala. Dean balanced four donuts wrapped in a napkin in one hand and two cups of coffee sealed with travel lids wedged in the opposite elbow. He leaned down to use his wrist to knock on the driver’s side window. 

Castiel immediately moved towards the driver’s seat to open the door, pushing it open wide so that Dean could easily slide inside next to him. “Thanks,” Dean said as he deposited the paper-wrapped donuts onto the dash. He grabbed one of the coffees from its roost in his elbow and held it out, waggling it slightly. “For you.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Castiel took the proffered cup with a small smile that warmed Dean up far more effectively than coffee.

Dean closed the door behind him and settled behind the wheel, brushing at the traces of dampness that clung to his jeans and jacket. He grabbed his own cup and spun it in his hands before prying open the sipping lid. Dean grinned at Castiel, who was carefully punching open the travel lid on his own cup. “Before you drink it all,” he said, reaching for the donuts on the dash. He unwrapped the napkin, revealing the tower of sugar. “Do you like sprinkles or chocolate or…?” Dean couldn’t quite meet Castiel’s eye; a combination of longing and shame battled for attention. Shame, because he should have been offering these things all along. How long had Castiel been eating? What did he even like, besides coffee? 

“Sprinkles,” Castiel said after a long pause. “Thank you.” He took the two colorful donuts from the top of the pile and balanced them on his leg. Sugar flaked onto his pants.

“Yeah. No problem.” Dean jammed half of one of the chocolate donuts into his mouth and nestled his cup safely into the vee of his legs. “Into the woods,” he announced around a mouthful of donut. 

The parking lot by Abby Park was empty this early on a weekday, so Dean parked right beside the trailhead which led into the woods. He’d finished his coffee; the donuts had been reduced to fine crumbs of sugar dusting the Impala’s bench seat. Dean checked his gun and his pockets, and then pulled the weapon-packed duffle from the trunk and slung it over his shoulder. He glanced towards the sky, assessing the weather. The tree canopy overhead was as fine and bright as green lace, and the rain had stopped for the time being.

At the tree near the trailhead, the constellation of earthstar mushrooms spread across the ground and the trunk, the same as yesterday. Today, however, a scattering of cloud-gray bulbs pushed up from the rain-darkened leaf litter like a lit path leading into the depths of the woods. Dean jabbed a finger at the now-apparent trail. “Was that there yesterday?”

“I don’t-” Castiel coughed suddenly and his hand flew to his chest in surprise. “Sorry.” With a rumble, he cleared his throat. “I don’t believe it was. But that direction would make sense.” By way of explanation, he reached into his pocket and drew out the rumpled envelope from Luo’s house. Next to the list of victims and possible-suspects, Luo had scrawled a map. Castiel traced along the winding line that meandered over cross-hatched lines, only to end at an X. “It’s rough, but I believe this is intended to be a map of this trail.” He indicated the trail they had walked in on, then pointed to the cross-hatching. “These may be hills or valleys. I think this leads to a particular destination.”

“Maybe a clue?”

“Maybe a clue,” Castiel confirmed. 

Dean drew his lip into his teeth and stared down the trail until it disappeared into the fold of the next valley. The newly emerged earthstars seemed to align with the path, growing in the underlayer just feet away from the trail. 

Castiel coughed again, then cleared his throat. He met Dean’s bemused look with something like an angry cat with a feather stuck in its throat. “It’s the best lead we’ve got.” He coughed again, looking downright disgruntled this time. “Sorry.”

“Cas, are you—?”

Castiel scowled. “I’m fine, Dean. Come on. We’re wasting time.” He stalked away, following the path of earthstars into the wooded hills.

Dean watched him walk away and worry gnawed at his gut. “Okay,” he said finally, and hurried to follow. 

It wasn’t a magical hiking path; there was no river of mushrooms leading inexorably inward. Instead, earthstars grew at the bases of trees and dotted the ground in isolated rings. The clusters were distant - in some cases several feet apart - but it never took them too long to zero in on the next bunch. They were like stepping stones that led deeper into the woods.

As they walked, Castiel coughed. It was a rough cough, perhaps all the more difficult to hear because it seemed to tear out of Castiel and surprise him each time. He paced a little ahead of Dean, shoulders rigid and angel blade gripped in his white-knuckled fist, ready to slice and stab. 

As they walked, Dean began to watch their path a little less, and watch Castiel a little more. Castiel didn’t look like he was heading into battle. He looked like he was mid-fight, the cough tearing at him as he stalked, grim-faced, into the woods. Worry built up in Dean until he couldn’t suppress it anymore. Whatever was going on with Castiel, it was far beyond normal. “Cas? Hey, man—”

He was interrupted by a scream, high-pitched and terrified, coming from the trail ahead of them. They both froze, automatically swiveling to try and pinpoint the sound.

The scream shrilled again, and then they were running down the steep slopes, shoes skidding on wet leaf litter and soft mud. They found the source of the screams at a small ravine. 

Tayla skittered over the summit of the ravine as they charged up the slope, sliding across the mist-wet muck of the forest floor. She was muddy, with streaks of dirt marring one side of her body, like she’d taken a hard fall. Her hands, as she scrabbled for support against the dense trees, were dirty. Bright red blood colored the blade of one hand. “Oh my god,” she said with a mix of raw panic and relief in her voice as she saw them. “You’re here,” her voice trembled and broke and she nearly tumbled the rest of the way down the steep slope, meeting them at the bottom. Pieces of mushrooms dislodged by her awkward progress rolled down the hill and came to rest at their feet like little beached starfish. 

“Hey, you alright?” Dean asked, reaching out to steady her. She seemed to anchor gratefully in his grip and shook her head. 

“I shouldn’t have come out here,” she said, voice thin with suppressed sobs. “Oh my god, I shouldn’t have come.” 

“What did you see?” Castiel demanded. “And where?”

Tayla shook her head, wordlessly, then took a deep breath and gulped. “Um,” her voice trembled. “My uncle he— he told me about this place in the woods that he would go to sometime. A little hunting cabin. Abandoned, once the forest easement expired. But…but…”

“It wasn’t abandoned,” Dean guessed. He met her eyes and tried to steady her, hoping his grip was reassuring rather than compounding her terror. He needed to know what they were heading into. “Can you tell me what you saw there?”

“I don’t…” She shook her head and the lines of her face turned sickly in her distress. “There was a body.”

“A body?” Castiel coughed again, a wet hacking cough. He shook his head sharply at Dean’s inquiring look, a glance that clearly said _not now._

“There was a body lying in the doorway with…with all these growing out of it.” She skittered one foot away from an earthstar near her foot, and pointed with her finger. “They were everywhere. In the woods, in the cabin, growing out of his…out of his chest.” She shook her head again, this time more violently. “I’ve gotta get out of this forest. Fuck, I’ve gotta get out of this town.” She gripped Dean’s hand where he still held her shoulder. “You’ve got to _leave_.”

Dean sighed, tempted to compel her to show them where the cabin was before she became incoherent with shock. 

“Tayla, if there’s anything you’re keeping to yourself, now’s the time to—”

“I want to get the _fuck_ out of here,” she growled, wrenching her arm away and stepping back. 

Dean held up his hands, playing the odds. They could hold Tayla here against her will and try to interrogate her, or coerce her cooperation with threats. But there was a trail of mushrooms leading right to where they needed to go, and probably answers at the cabin. He jabbed a finger at her. “As a federal agent, I’m ordering you not to skip town. Wait for us at the Sunshine Diner. I got more questions for you.”

Relief washed over Tayla’s features and she nodded. “Fine. Okay, fine. Can we go now?”

“We’ve gotta check out that body. You’ll have to make your own way out,” Castiel ground out, one hand pressing against his chest. 

Immediately, Tayla began to trot backwards, watching them warily like any moment one of them might tackle her to the ground.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Okay. Okay, go. Get out of here. But listen. You’ve got our card. Call us if you can think of anything you didn’t tell us yesterday. And _don’t skip town_.” He emphasized the last part and a flicker of guilt passed over her shocked features. 

“Fine. Sure. See you at the diner.” She turned heel and sprinted up the steep slope, vanishing from sight over the crest of the hill. 

Dean sighed, turning back to Castiel. “A creepy cabin in the woods,” he said. “Great.”

Castiel coughed in reply, shook his head, then coughed again. He thumped at his chest. “Sorry.”

Dean gripped his shoulder, then lifted his hand to palm Castiel’s cheek. “Dude, what’s been going on with you? You don’t sound okay, so don’t give me that bullshit.”

“Dean, I’m fine—” Castiel said and then broke off into a coughing fit so intense that he bent at the waist. When he rose, he was looking at the palm of his hand. 

Dean’s breath froze. Bright red spots sprayed across Castiel’s palm. A clump of what looked like pink fiber rested in its center. Castiel frowned at it then leaned down to wipe his hand on the ground. The motion jarred another terrible cough from him and the next thing Dean knew, they were both kneeling in the wet earth as Castiel’s back jolted with the force of his coughs. 

Dean gripped his coat in a tight fist and shook it a little as fear threatened to swamp him. “We gotta get you out of these woods,”

“No, I’m—”

“Bullshit, you’re not fine. You’ve been coughing since we started walking. Hell, you’ve been coughing since this morning, haven’t you?” he asked, memory dawning. “Jesus, Cas. Do you know what’s wrong? You gotta tell me, so I can help you.”

Castiel shook his head. “I have some su— Susp--” He coughed some more. “Suspicions,” he ground out finally. “And it is worse here. Woods are worse.” White knuckled fists pressed into the ground. 

“Okay, we’ll get you out of here. Get you patched up. Good as new.” 

It wasn’t the first time Dean had supported Castiel’s weight, but it was the first time he had to steer Castiel while coughing fits seemed to rattle him to pieces. 

Dean managed to guide them back to the car, where Castiel slumped in the passenger seat. His cough hadn’t seemed to abate much in their journey back out of the forest, but his breathing eased once they were on the smooth concrete of the parking lot. “Is it the town?” Dean asked, low and urgent. “We can leave. Get you somewhere safe. Back to the bunker. Sam and Rowena can—”

Castiel shook his head, coughing blood into the elbow of his sleeve. He stayed hunched over, taking shallow breaths and speaking quietly as though that might tease less agony from his lungs. “Too late,” he whispered. “Need a place to rest.” He coughed some more. “Motel room.”

It only took a moment for Baby to roar to life. Dean threw the car into drive, tearing out of the parking lot as soon as he had a mission and destination. “Motel it is,” he promised. But if Castiel didn’t improve soon, he’d drive as fast as he could back towards Lebanon, and make Sam meet him halfway if he had to. 

By the time they arrived back at the little motel room, Castiel seemed to be coughing less and something in Dean’s chest eased as well. Maybe the woods held a god, or a spell that repelled angels. He felt queasy thinking of the physical nature of Castiel’s affliction. How he’d been coughing up strands of what looked like the mycelial fibers Tayla had told them about - the same fibers they’d found in Scott Luo’s body. He’d been doing this job too long to believe that anything could be mere coincidence.

He helped Castiel inside and moved him to the bed. Castiel eased back under his own power, slumping into a sitting position with one hand pressed to his chest. 

“I’m calling Sam,” Dean said, ready for an argument, but Castiel nodded with his eyes closing gratefully.

“Dean?” Sam sounded bright and eager, apparently ready to jump into lore. “We’re still looking but…”

“Well, you gotta look faster,” Dean cut him off. “Listen, something’s wrong with Cas.”

Instantly Sam’s voice sharpened. “What’s going on?”

Dean explained the symptoms while Castiel sat with one hand on his chest, breathing shallowly with his eyes closed. Pain carved deep furrows into his features. 

“So if it’s this fungus that Cas is coughing up…” Dean summarized.

“How do we stop it?” Sam finished. He sounded worried. 

“I don’t know, man. That stuff seemed to thrive off of protective charms.” He set the speaker phone on the table and whipped open his laptop, hoping that he might stumble across something in a search of the scanned archives that might help. 

A keening noise came from Castiel, sudden and horrifying pitiable. Dean whipped his head around and saw Castiel had curled his hand into a fist over his heart. “Dean,” he said in a terribly small voice. “It’s—” the first word hissed out on a cough. “Getting worse.” He flicked his right wrist and silver emerged from his coat cuff. Castiel shook free his blade and it fell into his palm. He laid it on the bed and it rolled down the mattress to snug up against his thigh. 

“Cas?” Dean rushed to him, ready to help, ready to haul him out of the motel and see if getting him entirely out of town might fix things. 

“It’s attacking me,” Castiel whispered. “My grace. It’s—” He fumbled in his inner coat pocket and drew out something that glinted in the sunlight like a cut diamond. An empty glass vial on a simple silver chain spilled from his shaking hand onto the bedspread. He chased the empty vial with clumsy fingers, his entire body shaking now, and thumbed open the hinged cap. Then he picked up his blade and Dean’s jaw dropped open.

“Cas, what are you—”

“It’s feeding off of my grace,” Castiel ground out, flipping the blade towards his throat. Except his hands, his arms, his entire body shook with tremors now. The tip of his blade targeted the hollow of his throat, but the tremors kept him from slicing deep. “Gotta cut it out.”

“What?” Dean scrambled onto the bed, ready to seize the blade away.

Castiel tried to take in a steadying breath but it just spun him into worse shakes as coughs rattled him again. His lips were turning purple and his face shone pale. “Cut out my grace,” he said and thrust the blade at Dean. The silver blade wobbled between them and their eyes met for a second that felt like a lifetime. “Please.”

Dean took the blade. It felt warm in his palm. “I’m not gonna cut out your grace, Cas,” he said weakly. 

Castiel shook his head, his eyes screwed tight. When he opened them, blue light leaked from the corners. “It’s using my power. I can’t… Burn me out… Please…”

“Fuck,” Dean gripped the blade and ripped the bottle from Castiel’s other hand as Castiel begged him again, almost silently moving his lips now. He pushed at Castiel’s chest, unwilling to press a blade to his throat while he shook and wavered. Better to have him against a solid surface, at least. Castiel fell backward onto the mattress, coat falling out in a pool around him, arms far too lax. Blue light bled from his eyes. 

Dean pinned him down, mind tumbling over the theory of grace extraction. It was easiest to draw from the throat, a precise midline weakness that was hard to target and mathematically derived - something about Fibonacci spirals and fourth-dimensional geometry. He tried to work out percentages and formulas and how the diagrams he’d seen in a dry, ancient book might translate to the writhing, agonized body of his friend below him. _Right. Don’t overthink it._ “Hold still, Cas.” He set his teeth, then sliced quickly and decisively at Castiel’s throat.

For a tiny fraction of a second, nothing happened except for a cold rush of fear that he’d done it - he’d killed Castiel. Then blue light began to curl from Castiel’s throat, coiling like a cat’s tail outside of his body. Hastily, Dean held up the flask and Castiel’s grace rushed into it like it had found a second home. The shine in Castiel’s eyes faded to their usual deep blue as power left his body. 

In a flash of light, the grace finished moving from Castiel’s body to the bottle where it glowed blue and pure and tranquil. Dean dropped the blade and capped the bottle with shaking fingers. Then he gripped it tightly in one hand. His other hand shook on Castiel’s chest. “Cas?”

Castiel lay still and waxen, a terrible red line slashed across his throat. But he was also breathing slow and steady, albeit with a bit of a wheeze.

“Cas, are you okay?” 

Castiel opened his eyes. They no longer bled angelic blue. Instead Castiel regarded him with something shadowing relief. He nodded and a small cough tore from him. He curled into it and Dean hastily scrambled off of him, snatching up the angel blade and moving it higher on the bed. “I’ll be fine,” Castiel whispered into the bedspread. His shaking began to subside. 

Dean began to tremble instead as adrenaline crashed around him. His entire arm shook as he curled it into his chest, clutching the precious vial of grace to his center. 

“Dean, what the fuck is going on?” Sam’s shout cut through the suddenly silent room.

Dean turned to register the speakerphone, feeling like he’d just fought an epic battle and a thousand years had passed since they’d last spoken. “Cas is human now,” Dean said. “And we need to figure this the fuck out.” 


	4. Chapter Four

Dean made a terrible nursemaid. 

Oh, he was gentle, incredibly gentle as he helped wash the blood from Castiel’s throat and mouth and hands. His fingers were steady as he pinched together the tender skin of Castiel’s neck and secured it with butterfly bandages and then bound it with antibiotic and clean non-stick gauze. “Can’t have you getting this infected,” he said through a mask of tight anger, smoothing his fingers repeatedly along the tendons stretching down to Castiel’s collarbone. 

Dean had been gray as a ghost after he’d cut out Castiel’s grace. Once he’d patched him up, Dean sat at the edge of the bed with the bottle glowing in his hand. Castiel had shaken his head when Dean offered it to him. “Wouldn’t want to give this fungus any ideas,” he’d managed to hack out, and so Dean had looped the chain over his own neck and tucked the bottle of grace under his shirt. It was no longer visible, but the knowledge of its nearness burned within Castiel. 

Now, Castiel lay tucked into bed, coughing harshly into a succession of tissues. Every cough burned the cut at his throat but he refused to moan at the sudden, raw pain until Dean left the motel room to get food, cursing up a blue streak about the appalling lack of delivery options in Morris. The sun had come out briefly as the hour ticked past mid-morning, burning off enough of the haze so that the trees outside the motel room looked almost cheerful. 

Castiel watched the window, trying to pretend that the gnawing agony in his stomach was just human hunger, sudden and surging after the paltry donuts from earlier that morning. Really, he was terrified that something had happened to Dean. Whatever magic swept through this town moved quickly, if his own ailment was any evidence. It was hard not to imagine Dean taken ill on the side of the road somewhere, dying and alone.

Castiel doubled over in bed and coughed roughly. He grimaced and wiped his mouth as best as he could manage before dropping the tissue in the trash can Dean had clunked next to the bed. He still felt as weak as a kitten. It did not bode well for the hunt ahead. 

In an eternity that only measured as forty-five minutes, Castiel finally heard the low rumble of the Impala pull into the motel parking lot. He pushed himself upright and ran a finger along his lips, trying to will color to his cheeks the way he’d been able to do with his grace in residence. By the look on Dean’s face as he barged through the door, he hadn’t managed to present the perfect picture of health. 

“You doing okay?” Dean greeted him by swinging a heavy bag of food onto the table. Cans clunked against the wood.

“I’m fine,” Castiel lied.

“Bullshit.” Dean rummaged in the bag and pulled out a plastic-wrapped set of paper bowls. He gestured with the bowls towards the bed and scowled. “Lay the fuck down, man.”

Castiel rolled his eyes in protest, but he did scoot further down into the bed and rested against the pillows propped there. _Damn_ , he had forgotten what bone-deep, mortal exhaustion felt like. “Do _you_ feel alright?”

“I’m fine.” Dean’s back was turned to Castiel. He pried a tin lid off of a soup can that he’d pulled from his grocery bag and then noisily unwrapped the set of bowls. With a squelching, unappetizing plop, the soup cascaded into a bowl. 

“Dean.”

At this, Dean turned towards him, lips compressed in an aggrieved line. “I’m fine, Cas.” He held up his hands like a court exhibit. “Honest. We were exposed to all the same stuff. If it was gonna come after me, I think it would’ve done it already.” He carried the bowl carefully to the little dresser-top microwave and placed it inside, then crossed his arms as the soup heated. “You sound a little better.” 

“I feel better,” Castiel assured him, breathing carefully as he felt another rough cough trying to tease itself from his lungs. 

“Good,” Dean said, looking marginally more relieved. “Listen, the sooner we get to the bottom of this, the better. Did Sam call you with anything?” He’d forbidden Sam from heading to Morris, and Rowena had backed him up with dire warnings about curses that fed on beings who possessed natural magic. Natural magic, like that which was derived from an angel’s grace, or a born witch, or a psychic.

“Not yet. But it’s only been a few hours,” Castiel said wryly. 

Dean shot him an unimpressed raised eyebrow and when the microwave dinged, he pulled out the soup and brandished it between them like a weapon. “Fine. You eat in the meantime. Don’t think I didn’t hear your stomach. Eating the occasional donut ain’t enough for a human body.”

“I’m aware,” Castiel said cooly, pointedly pushing himself upright against the pillows again. His stomach rumbled at the smell of the soup and saliva pooled on his tongue. He _was_ hungry. He reached out for the bowl, trying to conceal the shake in his hands.

Dean saw it anyway, of course he did. “Shit. I should’ve gotten a mug.” His expression softened. “Here, I’ll help you.” He grasped the plastic spoon and scooped up a mouthful, holding it out.

Castiel glared. “I can eat on my own. Just...set it somewhere. The side table?”

Dean set the bowl on the bedside table and helped Castiel to scoot closer to the edge. Castiel leaned over the fragrant soup, letting it heat his face, and then took the spoon from Dean. Carefully, he ate the soup. Most of it went into his mouth; the rest was mopped up quietly by Dean as it fell. 

“So a curse, or a plague that feeds on magic,” Dean mused as Castiel ate. “We’ve got one dead probable witch.”

“And the other two linked by Luo’s list.”

“Possible witches by association.”

“We got one AWOL medical examiner, too. I was thinking I’d start with the Doc,” Dean said, blotting another drop of soup from the bedsheet.

“ _You’d_ start with the doctor?”

“Yes, me. Cas, you collapsed this morning. You can’t possibly be thinking about heading out on a hunt.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes into a scowl. “And you can’t possibly be thinking about hunting on your own.”

“I used to do it all the time.”

“Dean.” Castiel shot out his hand, pleased to find that anger steadied it. Grasping Dean’s chin firmly, he directed Dean’s gaze towards himself. “No.”

Dean returned the glare at first, then steadily dropped it in the face of Castiel’s taut plea. He sighed, deflating. “Fine.” His chin scraped against Castiel’s hand and when Castiel loosened his grip, he seemed to chase after his touch, burying his jaw into the warm crook of Castiel’s fingers. “You eat some more, get some rest, because- do not lie to me, you look fucking exhausted. And then we’ll both go. Happy?”

Castiel released him and picked up the spoon again. “Very,” he said, and finished his soup.

After he ate, he let Dean help him to the bathroom. He still felt wobbly, a little light-headed, but was pleased to find that he rapidly improved. In the bathroom, he turned on the tap and burbled a few final coughs hidden under the sound of the water. Droplets of blood washed down the sink, but although his lungs felt raw, they also felt blissfully empty. He turned off the water and dried his hands, then tried an experimental deep breath. His chest rose and fell in the mirror, burning at the deep inhale. But he did not cough again. 

When he emerged, Dean stood up from the end of the bed. He’d been rubbing at the divot under his lip and when he dropped his hand it stood out in a red line of worry. “You need help?” he asked. 

“I’m _fine_ ,” Castiel assured him, holding onto the door frame before letting go and navigating the short distance back to the bed. He tried to swallow a yawn as he went and Dean clicked his tongue in exasperation behind him and muttered something likely foul under his breath. 

“Get some sleep. We’ll see how you’re doing this afternoon. If you’re actually better, we’ll head out together. Otherwise, you’re staying here if I have to tie you to the bed.”

“Oh, will you?” Castiel turned and issued a cool eyebrow in challenge, gratified to see Dean flush. He climbed back under the covers and settled against the pillows, burrowing down into them with his cheek and chin.

The mattress sagged and shifted as Dean stood up again, then paced across the room. The door lock jiggled; Dean was testing it. Then the mattress dipped again, closer this time and Castiel opened his eyes to see him settling beside him, back against the headboard.

“Close your eyes,” Dean said, this time with something approaching a fond smile. 

Castiel contemplated issuing additional challenging glares, but now the trauma of the morning caught up to him and he craved sleep. He closed his eyes and managed not to startle when a moment later, he felt Dean’s fingers begin to gently comb through his hair. He let the breath out through his nose and focused on the slow, calming touch. In far less time than it had ever taken him before, he was asleep.

Castiel woke to Dean hissing into his phone. “I dunno. He’s still pretty weak. I don’t know, Sam. How sure are you? And where?” He grumbled low in his throat. “Fine. _Fine_. I’ll let you know. No! You almost died,” Dean barked suddenly. “Don’t you dare come here. You got magic in your bones. So does Rowena. Hell, I don’t want anyone else here who might die on me suddenly because they didn’t know they had some kind of ‘natural magic.’ Got it? Yeah. Bye.” He ended the call and sighed, pressing the edge of the phone to his forehead.

“Was that Sam?” 

Dean jumped and whirled on Castiel. He narrowed his eyes. “You awake already? You need more sleep.”

Castiel resisted the siren lure of the warm bedding and pushed himself upright. “I do not,” he protested, feeling like a petulant child. “What did Sam say?”

Dean pursed his lips. “After you got sick they settled on a working theory.”

“Which is…?” Castiel didn’t resist rolling his eyes this time. “I will get it out of you one way or the other, Dean. It’s best to be informed to tackle this with haste, wouldn’t you agree?”

“They think this spell latches onto magic. They’re trying to figure out what type of spell. Apparently it’s pretty rare. Most spells that feed on magical, uh, people are more like binding spells, like the one the Grand Coven used on Rowena. Those feed on the bound magic, but otherwise don’t kill the victim.”

“Or cause strange fungal growths.”

“Or that.” Dean tossed his phone onto the comforter, next to a couple crumpled burrito wrappers. “How about it? You up for a nice house call on our absent coroner?” 

Castiel took a moment to take stock of his body. The magic that had twisted into his grace and caused those vile mushrooms to bloom in his lungs had released him as soon as he’d cut out his grace. Without his grace he didn’t have his usual finely-wrought analysis of his body, but he could tell that he’d coughed out the worst of the offending matter and the ache in his chest had abated enough with sleep. He stretched his arms overhead, rolling his neck to crack out the kinks in it. “I feel good. Or if not good,” he amended, “much better. Certainly well enough to work. Are you ready?” He frowned at the dark circles under Dean’s eyes. 

“I’m peachy,” Dean said, his face a grouchy, sleep-deprived mask. “C’mon then. You want a burrito before we go? They’re not great but--”

“Yes,” Castiel said with gusto, and Dean laughed. 

While Dean tossed a few room-thawed burritos into the microwave, Castiel pushed himself from the lovely cocoon of the bed and padded to the bathroom, pleased to find he was far steadier this time. He could feel Dean’s gaze on the back of his neck, assessing his recovery carefully and he self-consciously squared his shoulders.

Once in the bathroom, he gratefully closed the door behind him and washed himself over the sink as best as he could, straightening his loosened tie and trying to flatten his rumpled collar. His hair stuck up wildly and there were still red marks where the folds in the pillow case had left impressions on his cheek. He made a face in the mirror, combing his hand through his hair in a mostly failed attempt to flatten it, and then sighed. It would have to do until it was safe to reabsorb his grace. 

When he emerged again, Dean had the burritos wrapped in a paper napkin. He handed them silently to Castiel, who nodded gratefully and peeled back one of the steaming wrappers to take a bite. It was hot, full of beans and cheese, he moaned around his first bite. “These were a very good idea,” he said, noticing Dean staring at him. 

“Yeah, they’re not bad,” Dean agreed with a shrug. His eyes were sharp, boring into Castiel, but his lips were set in a gentle curve that went beyond amusement. _Affection, perhaps_ , Castiel realized and the thought was as warming as a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. 

“We better get going,” Dean said at last. “Don’t want to be out in those woods after dark if we can help it.”

“Of course,” Castiel agreed. He lifted a burrito, like he was raising a toast. “I’ll take these for the road.”

Castiel finished his food in the first ten minutes of the drive to Doctor Kroup’s house, balling up the napkins and tucking them away in the footwell to dispose of later. He’d forgotten how severe of a hindrance hunger could be on any person, much less a hunter who at any moment might have to fight for his life. He felt sated now, but the clawing worry of running out of food that had plagued him the last time he was without his grace emerged as though it had never left. He eyed the bag of beef jerky, still jammed against the windshield, and wondered if he could slip it in his pocket. Just in case.

“Well, this is the place,” Dean interrupted his thoughts by pointing out a house hidden behind a spreading oak, blooming with fledgling oak leaves.

The coroner lived in a beige, sprawling ranch-style home on a tree-lined street at the edge of town. Richly colored glass globes perched on pedestals lined the walkway like colorful parade markers, at odds with the carefully manicured house. 

Dean parked along the generous curb and turned off the engine. “You think she’s home?” Dean asked, gesturing towards the front door. “It’s broad daylight and her porch light’s on.”

“There’s a vehicle in her driveway. Either she has a second car or—”

“Or someone’s home.”

They got out of the car and approached the front door warily, Castiel with his fist curled around the hilt of his blade, thrust under the flap of his trench coat. When they reached the porch, Dean went to the window on the right while Castiel pressed a hand against the glass by the door. Inside, the house appeared still. The hall light blazed cheerily, like a jaunty assurance of well-being. He narrowed his eyes, shading them against the glare. Something dark speckled the blond wood floor near the back of the house. Castiel sucked in a breath. “Dean, I think I see mushrooms back there?”

Dean paused with his fist upraised to knock and then leaned into Castiel’s space to peer inside as well. “I think you’re right.” He tossed Castiel a furtive look, then reached for the door handle and tested the knob. To Castiel’s surprise, the door opened easily on silent hinges.

Inside the house, they swiftly made their way back to the little black stars growing along the floor. They grew in a constellation pattern, like a negative exposure photograph on the white wood. The mushrooms spiraled outward away from the hallway. Castiel tracked them through a doorway, then gasped and rushed forward as soon as he saw the prone figure on the ground. 

Doctor Kroup lay on the floor of her laundry room with her body twisted outward in frozen agony. The hand nearest to the door seemed to point out towards the fungal spiral creeping through her house. Her fingers were coated in white strands that clung between her skin and the floor. A mushroom bloomed on one knuckle, like a grotesque ring. 

“Shit,” Dean muttered behind him and Castiel moved forward to allow Dean to crowd around him. “We were too late.”

Castiel’s shoulders dropped in defeat. “We couldn’t have known. There was probably nothing we could have—”

The doctor moaned, low and pained. 

Castiel gasped and fell to his knees to examine her more closely. He laid a hand on her shoulder, prompting her to roll ever so slightly away from the floor. Her face pulled up from the tile with a sound like a burr pulling away from wool, and strands of fungus pulled away with the movement of her cheek. She opened her eyes blearily. “Wha--?”

“We’re here to help you. Dean?”

“On it.” In the background, Dean dialed emergency services, sending terse instructions to the operator on the line. 

“Do you know what happened to you?”

“Curse,” Kroup muttered. “Cursed.”

“Who cursed you?” Castiel asked, unable to prevent the urgency in his tone.

“Mmmmph.”

“Sorry?” Castiel leaned lower, so his ear was positioned inches away from her nearly motionless mouth. 

“Had to warn. Hunter,” she whimpered. 

Castiel glanced at Dean. “Yes,” he said. “We’re hunters. Who did this to you?”

Her eyes widened just a tiny fraction, but the change in expression seemed unaccountably dramatic. Something like a wheeze escaped her mouth and Castiel realized that it was a laugh. “Hunters,” she finally said. “Come to kill me?”

“We’ve come to help you,” Dean said, crouching down low. “An ambulance is on its way. Just hang in there, okay?”

Her brows knit and she flicked her gaze between them. “You— Helping me?”

“Trying to,” Castiel confirmed. “Something is attacking the magically gifted in this town. We’re trying to stop it, but we need your help. Can you think of anyone who would want to do you harm? Or your coven?” he added, gambling on the link between the victims.

“Hunter. Went for Beth and she…not answering her phone. Then they found the cabin, and Scott died and—” She broke off with a low moan, curling inward. “Told everyone else to get the fuck out.” Kroup held her mushroom-clad knuckles inches from her nose. “Too late for me,” she said, mournfully. “Too late.”

“No, it’s not,” Castiel said, wishing that he could wield his grace without falling prey to the parasitic spell. “You hear those sirens? They’re coming to help you. So just hold on, okay?” He glanced up at Dean, silently asking if they should stay with her or leave her to whatever help humans might provide.

“We gotta move,” Dean said quietly. He slapped Castiel on the shoulder and pushed himself up to stand. “You hang in there, Doc.” 

Castiel gave her one more gentle squeeze on the arm and jogged after Dean out of the doctor’s house and down to the Impala. Once inside, Dean ran a frustrated hand through his hair, completing the gesture by jerking his hand away angrily. “Fucking curses,” he said. He turned to Castiel. “You hear what she said about the cabin?”

“They found the cabin,” Castiel repeated. “I think it’s the place Tayla mentioned, when we saw her in the woods. The map Luo drew would match up to her path, more or less.”

Sirens wailed nearer and flashing lights could be seen between the houses around the corner. “Okay, well, let’s go get our nature hike on.” They jumped into the car and peeled away as the ambulance rounded the far streetcorner. 

They were five miles from Abby Park when Castiel’s phone rang. He shifted in his seat and pulled it out, revealing an unknown number. He glanced at Dean questioningly then said, “Hello?”

“Agent Plants?” The voice on the other end shook. “This is Tayla Luo. From yesterday?”

Castiel sat forward, instantly at attention. “Tayla? Is everything alright?”

“Um. No?”

“What’s wrong? Where are you?”

Static crackled across the line. “I’m at a truck stop off of forty-four. And there are—” There was a choked off, bitter-sounding laugh. “Sorry, this is gonna sound crazy.” She groaned over the phone line. “I should just hang up. I’m sorry.”

“No!” Castiel glanced at Dean, holding up a finger to tell him he should pull over for just a moment. Dean guided the car over onto the gravel shoulder and slid it into park, engine idling. “Please. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I brought some of those earthstars back with me. I was planning on bringing them to the herbarium but I… Well, the thing is, Agent, they got out of their container.”

Castiel frowned. “What do you mean, ‘they got out of their container?’”

“It should’ve been sealed but it’s all over my car. All these mushroom fibers and little growing earthstars. I mean, they’re _everywhere_. I can’t…I can’t be in there. What if they get to me? I’ve…I’ve started to feel a little sick.” Her voice wobbled over the line.

Castiel scrabbled for the envelope in his pocket, then flipped open the dashboard compartment to grab a pen from the jumble of maps and falsified registrations. “You did the right thing. Tell me where to find you.”

They found Tayla in the restaurant of the truck stop with her hands wrapped around a cold cup of coffee. Her eyes were red and her face drawn and, when she saw them, Castiel thought she might begin to cry. When they slid into the booth across from her, she immediately gasped, “Thank god you’re here. You’re hunters, right?”

Dean shared an assessing look with Castiel before admitting cautiously, “Yes, we are. What d’you know about hunters?”

“Um—” Her eyes widened, suddenly taking in the implication of their presence there, and what they might do to her. She looked over at the counter, where a bored waitress leaned against the Formica scrolling through something on her phone. “I don’t really practice myself. I swear! But my uncle… He’s a good witch. Was. And he wouldn’t ever-” She spread her hands like she was trying to feel her way for the truth. “We don’t hurt anyone. We don’t even really _do_ anything with it. Just…magic is a part of most of my family. I mean, I think the craziest thing Uncle Scott did was give his cousin a beard for like a summer. When he was a kid! Not now. Obviously.”

“So you’re a witch and you knew your uncle was a witch,” Dean said, a little flatly. “Why did you lie about that sigil in his kitchen?”

“A couple guys with guns corner me alone in a house, you don’t think I’m gonna do what I can to get out of there alive? Of course I didn’t tell you I knew what that meant. I mean, everyone can do a basic protection sigil but you shouldn’t usually have to.” She looked challengingly at them each in turn. “What would you have done?”

Castiel evaded the question. “Why did you call us? Why now?”

“You said you found mushrooms in your car?” Dean prompted. “And you’re feeling sick?” He couldn’t help but glance at Castiel, still freshly recovered from that horrible gagging fungi. Castiel knew they were wondering the same thing: if Tayla was infected, how long did she have before she would succumb as well?

“Well, I had that sample in a sealed container and everything, but then I noticed this growth on the bottoms of the seats and across the floor mats and it was like…it was almost like…” Tayla drew an impromptu map of her car with her finger on the tabletop. “I had the container in the passenger seat and I swear it was growing towards me. Towards the driver’s seat. And then I was passing Abilena and I felt…” She ran a palm down her chest. “Like there was something growing in here. I _still_ feel like that. Tight and awful and…and…” She started to breathe heavily. “And I don’t wanna die. Please. You gotta help me.”

“Okay,” Castiel said in a gentler tone, convinced by the terror shivering across every line of her body. “We’re gonna help you. But you’ve gotta help us too. When you were in the woods, what did you see?”

Tayla looked confused. “You mean you haven’t been out there yet? But I _told_ you…”

“He got sick,” Dean explained shortly. 

“I’m better now,” Castiel explained sharply to her assessing look. “What did you see?”

She gulped. “Well, there’s that cabin. My uncle told me about it. He sometimes did spellwork out there. You know, flashy stuff that would have been too strange for town?” Castiel nodded, remembering the explosions they’d caused in the bunker, or in no-name motel rooms around the country. “So I go out there to see if someone’s hiding out. Maybe they can help me? My uncle wasn’t part of a formal coven. You know, the kind with the whole ‘goals and group magic’ and stuff. But he moved here because there were a couple people like him - casual magic users who just wanted…support for their abilities.”

“You found somebody at the cabin,” Castiel prompted.

“There was a body in the doorway. A man.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“No. He…I didn’t. But...I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. But I also looked inside and I did know the person inside.” Her face crumpled. “She was nice. Used to give me muffins to take back home.” Her laugh was watery and mournful. “Tasted like shit but you know, it was the thought that counted.”

“There’s a body inside the cabin too?”

“Yeah.” 

“Was it Beth Anders?” Dean asked, sliding his phone across the table. It displayed a photo of Scott’s list. “She’s been missing for a couple of weeks now.”

Tayla nodded miserably. 

“And how does this connect with the mushrooms?” Castiel asked. “Can you tell us more about them? Any ideas why they’re showing up all over?”

“Um. _It’s_ showing up all over.” Tayla grimaced. “I think these mushrooms are all part of a single colony. Just…spread out through the hills and into the town.” She sucked in her lips and shivered, lifting a hand to rub her palm in tight circles under her throat. “Whoever made it, made it to kill, I think. And it’s just been growing and spreading itself everywhere. And inside people. And inside my car.” Her breathing was growing rough and panicked again. “And inside me.”

“Hey,” Castiel said, trying to impart his most soothing tone. “We are going to get to the bottom of this, I promise you. We’re headed to that cabin next.”

“Okay,” Tayla said in a small voice. 

“Will you come with us?”

“Fuck no.” Her reaction was visceral. She leaned away from the table then and crossed her arms tightly. “Can you please just…drop me off somewhere?”

“What, like a hospital?” Dean asked. “I didn’t think there was one in town.” 

Tayla shivered. “Not a hospital. Not…not yet. If you’re hunters and you can stop this thing, then I wanna be close. If there’s a spell or an incantation or - I don’t even know what needs to be said over me so I don’t die from this too - then I’m here for that. But I can’t go back to that cabin again. I _can’t_. I keep closing my eyes and then I see them and...it was so awful.”

“There’s the library?” Castiel suggested. “Right next to the police station.”

“That works,” Dean nodded. “If things start going south, you ask for help. And if we’re not back by nightfall...”

“Send help,” Castiel finished. 

“And call this number.” Dean fished a card from his pocket, with one of Sam’s aliases on it. “Tell them what happened. They can help.”

Tayla nodded miserably and, with this new plan agreed upon, they dropped her off at the municipal building and waited until she disappeared into the little library. Then they drove back to Abby Park. 

It was late afternoon by the time they arrived, and families had taken over the playground. The swings were in active use, squealing on rusted hinges, and a pair of parents with strollers sat on a nearby bench with their heads bent towards each other. 

Castiel and Dean emerged from the car with most of their weapons concealed in Dean’s duffle. Castiel’s blade pressed against his wrist, awkward without his grace to secure it. They looked terribly conspicuous in their suits, dressed in business non-casual for a hike in the woods. The parents’ heads raised like ground squirrels sensing a predator. Castiel nodded what he hoped was a friendly and carefree acknowledgment, and then followed Dean into the silent woods. 

The rain had let up again and the sky lightened to a golden gray. Castiel pulled out his phone, which displayed a photo of a map Tayla had drawn on it. “We follow the trail,” he said, frowning down at the map. “It branches about a mile in and we take the right branch. Then it looks like it’s about another mile to the cabin.”

Dean grimaced at his shoes. “I should’ve brought boots,” he groused, scuffing one mud-caked heel against a fallen log.

“Why don’t you wear your boots all the time?” Castiel asked curiously as they began to make their way down the trail. 

“You kidding me? They don’t go with this outfit.” Dean brushed proprietary hands down his lapels. “Gotta look the part.”

They followed the trail this time. The borders were edged in spring perennials of pale pink and blue. Fiddleheads uncurled, fading from blue to deep green. And all along the trail, earthstar mushrooms grew. 

“It’s gotten worse,” Dean observed. “Just yesterday this path was clear as far as we could see down the trail.” 

Castiel grunted in assent. “If Tayla is correct, and these mushrooms are all part of the same organism then, well…” He shook his head. “This sudden spread may have been my fault.”

“How so?” 

Dean’s heel slipped sideways a little as they start down a ravine and Castiel shot out a hand to steady him. He didn’t think he was imagining the way Dean leaned into his touch, moving so their strides were more closely matched and barely a foot away. Castiel hid an astonished half-smile. “A curse that feeds off of magic would have a successful time feeding off of grace. If it was all one organism, I may have provided it with an excellent meal.”

“You’re the nuclear power plant? Just making killer mutant mushrooms everywhere you go?”

“Something like that.”

Dean pressed his hand to his chest, almost certainly cradling the vial of grace in his palm.. “You sure this is okay, bringing this with us? Or you even being here at all? You could head back to the bunker, out of range.” 

Castiel didn’t dignify the suggestion with more than a displeased raised brow. 

“Right. You feeling okay, though?”

There was an edge to Dean’s exhale that cut right through Castiel’s defenses. “I feel perfectly well,” Castiel assured him, pleased to find that he did. His body felt tired, muscles stretching pleasantly as they hiked down the trail. Mortality was always unsettling, but easier to deal with the second time - and far easier than feeling the terrible burn of strange grace lighting up his body instead. It helped, too, knowing that Dean was by his side this time. By all appearances, that wouldn’t be changing any time soon. Maybe, if they wrapped up this case soon, Castiel would even have a chance to enjoy it properly. 

After the path split, they traversed two more ravines stretching over the scant final mile before encountering the cabin. 

Time and neglect had transformed what might have once been a sturdy hunting lodge into a dilapidated wreck. Graffiti scarred the walls and heavy moss grew on the roof, disappearing into holes that passed through into the interior. Fungus covered everything like an embellished shawl. White mycelial strands stretched ghost-like between posts and through cracks, and earthstars dotted the walls and surrounding earth in reds and grays. Large crystals on the ground peeked out through the mushrooms, and appeared to surround the cabin in a circle. Lying just inside the crystal circle, a human boot and jean-clad shin were visible underneath a tumble of fungus. 

Castiel cast Dean a wary look, and then they advanced together, crossing the crystal circle and crouching to examine the body in the doorway. 

“Hard to tell who he was,” Dean mused, stepping over the body to settle near where his chest should be. “I wonder if there are more mushrooms here, too - since yesterday.” He reached under the layer of earthstars, knocking them aside and pulling back the fungus-stiffened jacket of the dead man. 

Mushrooms spilled from the man’s burst chest, his shirt half-consumed and falling back in tatters. Dean frowned and pulled out a handful of identification cards and badges from an inner pocket, flipping them open to display them to Castiel. “Different names, all of ‘em. He was a hunter, alright.”

“Anyone you know?” 

Dean shook his head. “Poor bastard.” He sat back on his heels, tossing the ID badges to the ground. “The other witch must be inside.” 

The hunter lay half in the doorway, his body holding the door ajar. It was dark inside, and made darker by the incessant cloud cover and the shadowing trees falling over the cabin. 

Once through the doorway, Dean clapped a hand over his nose and mouth, and Castiel was tempted to do the same. The earthy smell of the single room was nearly overwhelming, the light dim through the windows. Suspended in the center of the room was a woman. Thick strands, like mammoth-sized mycelium, held her upright like she was caught in a spider’s web. Her hands were splayed, and mushrooms dripped from her fingers like jeweled rings. 

“Damn,” Dean whistled. “That spell sure did a number on her.”

“It does seem apparent that it originated here. The growth is far too…”

“Weird.”

“Yes, that’s a succinct way of putting it.” Castiel approached the woman’s body. Even as he watched, mushrooms grew from the mycelium holding her, blossoming like flowers and rolling to a pile on the ground that, left alone, would eventually bury her. 

“Do you see anything? An amulet? A sigil? Anything that might give us some clues about what might be causing this?” Dean carefully stepped around the mound of mushrooms, circling towards the back of the suspended woman.

Castiel frowned. “Nothing so far.” He leaned in for a closer look and gasped. 

“What? What is it?” Dean’s reply was instantly on edge and he reappeared at Castiel’s side with his gun drawn. 

“Dean, I…” Castiel reached out his hand and touched the woman’s wrist, pressing his fingers into the hollow there. “I think she’s still alive.”

“How the hell is that possible?” Dean held his hand up to her mouth. He had to stand on tiptoes to reach it, she was held so high in the air. “You’re right. She is.” He looked at Castiel uncertainly. “You think she’s keeping this spell alive? You think she caused this, trying to fight off that hunter?”

“A magic-consuming curse?” Castiel frowned. “It seems unlikely, but it wouldn’t be the first time a novice has made a fatal mistake.”

Dean grunted. “So. Do we kill her to break the curse?” He didn’t sound happy about it, and Castiel understood why. Standing in front of her, she looked tired and almost sweet, as though in sleep. Her deep brown skin glowed with a rosy flush of life and, in the twilight-purple dress she wore, she looked a little bit like a butterfly in a spider’s trap. 

“I don’t know,” Castiel said. “We don’t know what caused this. Killing her could make it worse. We need more information.” A mushroom dropped from her lips like a plea. 

Dean scratched the back of his neck and nodded, then headed towards the deeper corners of the cabin and began to sort through the litter of mushrooms for artifacts or runes. 

Castiel carefully examined the body of the witch for sigils or spellwork. Lacking his grace for this examination rankled him. In the mess of the cabin, a hex bag could be hidden anywhere and not be found for days. So he was relieved to find something as he moved behind Beth Anders. “She has a tattoo,” Castiel said, gesturing for Dean to come over. “On the back of her neck. There.” He pointed at the edges of a circular sigil half hidden under her hair. Standing on his tiptoes, he reached up to brush her hair aside.

“That’s a protection sigil,” Dean said. “Like the one at Luo’s place.”

“Clearly a favored sigil for this coven,” Castiel mused. “But unlike the ones painted on Luo’s wall, this sigil is untouched.” The mushrooms held Beth Anders in a firm embrace, but the back of her neck was astonishingly, entirely clear.

“D’you think that’s a perk about being patient zero?” Dean settled back on his heels, assessing the room and the strands of mycelium which held her up. 

“I don’t know if ‘perk’ is a word I’d use, but yes. I do.”

“I don’t like this. Any of this.”

“Agreed.”

“I think we should cut her down.”

Castiel frowned. “I do as well. But we should be prepared for...adverse effects.”

Dean nodded shortly, then unlocked the safety on his gun and leveled it at the suspended woman. “Ready.”

Castiel pulled out his blade and set it to the first thick strand. Something hissed within the room. It was a low sound, a slithering sound. Chills raced up Castiel’s spine and he suppressed a shudder with great effort. With a _snick_ , his blade cut through the first strand. 

While Beth Anders’ body should have begun to sag in its bonds, several other things happened at once. As if in fast forward, a new strand whipped up from the ground to latch onto her body, joining with the mycelia dangling from the ceiling. The slight slithering sound crescendoed and Dean shouted at Castiel to _run, for god’s sakes, get out,_ just before Castiel jumped clear from more strands whipping up to wrap themselves around the witch. Together, he and Dean pushed each other towards the door as the ground and walls around them seemed to shift with the wild, suddenly airborne mushrooms. 

They tumbled outside the door, fine spores drifting around them like a thick fog. When it cleared, the cabin was wrapped up tight, the fungus drawn around itself like a protective cocoon. “What the fuck--” Dean sputtered, swiping spores from his face.

“Dean,” Castiel said, pulling at his elbow to halt their stumbling retreat from the cabin. “There!” He pointed at a patch on the ground near the hunter’s body, now cleared by the mushroom exodus into the cabin. A gold medallion shone from the ground near the hunter’s hand, half scuttled in the dirt. 

Castiel tore a piece of the hunter’s wasted shirt and wrapped it around the gold medallion. On the medallion was carved a finely wrought earthstar mushroom, surrounded by a complex web of fretwork that Castiel took to resemble mycelium. It looked ancient, despite its high polish. 

Dean leaned over him and looked over the amulet in his hand. “We gotta send that to Sam,” he said. He spat to the side, then wiped his mouth in disgust. “We’re not gonna solve this tonight, if those mushrooms have anything to say about it. Come on, it’s getting dark. We should get back.”

Castiel wrapped the amulet up securely and nodded slowly. “You’re right.” He glanced towards the cabin, picturing the woman still alive at its heart. “We’ll be back.”


	5. Chapter Five

On the way back to the car they traded theories under the gloom-shadowed oaks. Dean pinned high hopes on the amulet being the key. Just one well placed hammer blow or heated brazier might be enough to break the curse and dash whatever vile magic was causing the deadly spores to spread. At the very least, maybe it would allow himself and Castiel to pass through the mushroom cocoon and get to the witch at its center.

Castiel looked more lively with each passing minute. He’d been horribly pale and in pain just that morning, but to look at him now you would never know it. He strode alongside Dean, tall and solid. His teeth flashed white in the twilit woods, smiling as trading theories morphed into a lengthy discussion about dinner. He wore humanity like a comfortable coat this time around. Fondness and worry dug a deep pit at at Dean’s core, even as he let the conversation skim along the surface. 

An unfinished case always burned a hole in Dean’s gut. It reminded him of the back-of-the-neck prickle he’d get by walking through a dark alley, knowing an attacker lurked somewhere along its length. But he’d also learned from years on the job that little food or sleep meant made him sloppy. Dangerous. With Castiel suddenly human, taking care of both of them became doubly important. 

They made a beeline for the library first. It was closing soon, lights blazing orange through the windows. Dean made Castiel rest in the car; he was looking a little peaked from the hike. 

The library was a single long room, lined with bookshelves and punctuated by tables and soft chairs. It was utterly empty, except for a librarian wiping down tables. “Excuse me,” Dean asked him, a pit of worry opening up in his stomach. “Did you notice a woman in here earlier. This tall, dark hair, red sweater?”

The librarian paused in his cleaning to look up at Dean and frown. “Yes, do you know her? We had to call an ambulance.”

“An ambulance?” Dean resisted the urge to pound his fist on the table. “Is she okay? What happened?”

“I don’t know what happened to her,” the librarian stammered. “But she was having trouble breathing. I think they said they were taking her to Carson General. That’s in Dover.”

Dean swore. “Thanks,” he said hastily, pulling out his phone as he rushed back outside. He pulled up the contact he’d created for Tayla before they left her at the library and dialed her number. It rang four times, then her voicemail piped up. He left a message telling her to call, his adrenaline screaming at him to move, to do something to save her.

“Fuck,” Dean muttered. He flung open the driver’s side door and brusquely handed his phone to Castiel. “Can you try calling Tayla again? She got taken to the hospital.”

Castiel looked dismayed. “Is she okay?”

“Dunno. But—“ Dean’s phone buzzed. They both looked at his phone as it buzzed two more times in quick succession. Quickly, Dean snatched it back and swiped open the messages. He slumped in his seat. “It’s her. Says she can’t talk.” The phone continued to buzz and Dean read the messages aloud to Castiel. “She’s at the hospital. They put her on antifungals and she thinks they’re helping.” Dean dropped the phone into his lap. 

“Should we go to her?” Castiel asked, doubtfully.

“I don’t know what we can do.” Dean grimaced. “God I hope that stuff can’t spread if she’s on medication. A whole hospital? A whole other town getting buried alive by creepy mushrooms?” A shudder stole through him. “So much for a slow moving illness. Either Tayla’s half as magical as you or—“

“Or the growth has accelerated overall.” Castiel frowned deeply. 

Frustrated, Dean raked his fingers through his hair. “We need to send Sam a picture of that amulet. If it’s a spell, maybe there’s an easy way to reverse it.”

Castiel laughed, though it was tinged with bitterness. “There’s never an easy way.”

“No,” Dean agreed with a sigh. “There really isn’t.”

With no other leads to pursue except researching the amulet and what Dean had decided to dub ‘murder mushrooms,’ Castiel texted Sam a hasty photo of the medallion, then they picked up fresh burritos, chips and salsa on their way back to the motel. “Next time we go through Abilene,” Dean promised Castiel as he settled their food on their motel room table, “you and me are going to Frankie’s. Best burgers and pie in the world. They make this taco burger. Six layers. You’ll love it. Messy as hell to eat, but worth it.”

“I don’t mind burritos,” Castiel said, somehow able as ever to cut through to the heart of the matter. He inhaled deeply, clearly making a show of enjoying the scent of the food as he closed and locked the door behind them. “These smell good.”

“Better than the gas station bomb you had earlier.” Dean slipped his jacket from his shoulders and tossed it onto the back of the wooden chair. He shifted his computer to the bed, then grabbed the bag of food and a bottle of beer from the grocery bag and settled himself onto the bed. He grinned at Castiel invitingly, then thumped the mattress so he would stop hovering and sit down. And if the spot he patted was unnecessarily close to him, well, that was his own business. 

They settled there, knees brushing as Dean pulled out his phone. Castiel dropped the amulet on the bed and flipped off its wrapping so it lay with the embellished details facing the ceiling. Dean took a picture of it in the brighter light of the motel and sent the clearer photo to Sam, then called him up and put the phone on speaker. 

“Still nothing, but tell me about this. How’d you find it?” Sam’s greeting was terse and Dean got the crawling sense that if the case wasn’t solved soon, Sam would head over - curse be damned. 

“We found it at the cabin near the hunter’s body.” Briefly, he described the way the fungus had peeled away from the ground to entomb the cabin.

“Wow,” Sam said flatly as Castiel continued the tale, describing the still-alive woman held at the center of the fungal cocoon in the little house. “Does it seem like it’s still getting worse? Did you notice any changes on your way back out of the woods?”

“Maybe?” Dean unwrapped his burrito noisily, foil crinkling around the edges. 

“We’ve got two people sick now, one of whom experienced extremely rapid symptoms. Coinciding with my own illness, I’m afraid. And the mushroom growth has spread considerably since yesterday.” Castiel toyed with the bit of waxed paper peeking out of the foil wrapping of his burrito. “It’s possible that whatever curse this is received a boost from my grace.”

Dean heart plummeted in his chest. They had tossed around the theory in the woods. But the self-accusatory tone Castiel took now was hard to hear. Dean settled a hand on Castiel’s knee and held him there, meeting his gaze and trying to convey his support and lack of blame nonverbally.

“I’m worried it’ll start to spread outside of Morris,” Dean confessed. “Especially since Tayla drove down the highway and left her car at that truck stop. There’s no telling who might have been exposed.”

Sam sighed deeply across the line. “You may actually need a real quarantine.”

Dean grunted in irritation. “In case you forgot, we’re not actually Feds here.”

“If it gets any worse, we might need to tip ‘em off.”

Dean grumbled. “Nothing better than working a case as a pretend Fed with the actual Feds.”

“I should really go there—“ Sam started to say, worry palpable over the phone.

“No,” Dean and Castiel said in unison. Dean caught his eye and winked once in appreciation for the support. And in flirtation because, well… 

Castiel sat cross-legged on the bed, pants riding up over his socks and shirtsleeves half rolled back. Stubble colored his jaw and deep lines were etched under his eyes. His mouth was soft and full and there was something so soft in his look as they stared at each other...

Dean came back to himself with a little jolt. Still on speakerphone, Sam was muttering to himself, discarding theories about the amulet as quickly as he formulated new ones. “Hey man,” Dean interrupted. “We’re gonna eat and maybe get a little shut-eye. It’s been a long day. You’ll call as soon as you find something?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, clearly half a world away and lost in thought. “Talk to you soon.”

After they hung up, Dean plucked the burrito from Castiel’s hands and pointedly peeled back the wrapper before handing it back. “None of this is your fault. We’re gonna get to the bottom of this and everything’s gonna be fine.”

Castiel rolled his eyes and snatched back the burrito. He took a huge bite and chewed it with relish, eyes half closing in bliss. “Was hungry,” he said through a mouthful of food, noticing Dean’s stare. Food seemed to accentuate Castiel’s mouth, the sharp lines of his jaw. 

A ridiculous desire rose in Dean to toss their food to the side and tackle Castiel to the mattress. Nibble up that jaw. Take up residence with his mouth. Revel in his warm lips and skin. 

Dean gave himself a mental shake. Food, sleep, case. That was the priority. The case had transformed from some half-imagined monster hunt to something very terrifying indeed, with Castiel’s vulnerability highlighted. He needed to focus. 

They ate in companionable silence for a while. When Dean finished eating he crumpled the foil from his burrito into a ball and lobbed it towards the trash can tucked into a corner by the dresser. The foil ball flew easily into the mouth of the basket. He quirked a smile at Castiel who raised a challenging brow. Slowly, deliberately, Castiel crumpled his own foil into a tight ball. He looked directly at Dean, then lobbed it at the basket off to his side. It landed with a rattle right next to Dean’s.

“Show off,” Dean muttered, and used the gentle ribbing as an excuse to knock playfully against Castiel’s knee. 

Castiel glanced down at his hand and a thoughtful look descended. Dean immediately felt heat rush up his spine, and he withdrew his hand.

“Before we dig into the lore,” Castiel said slowly, with a glancing touch to the closed lip of Dean’s computer weighting down the bedspread. “I’d like to talk.”

Worry loomed up instantly in Dean because nobody - not humans, not monsters, not angels - nobody ever said ‘we need to talk’ and meant something innocuous. “Okay,” he said cautiously. “Hit me. What’d you want to talk about?”

“About us.” 

“Cas,” Dean muttered, picking at a lint ball on the comforter. “It can wait. You need to…”

“I do _not_ need to rest,” Castiel said sharply, then tempered it with a sigh. “Very well, perhaps I do. I confess the after-effects are catching up to me again. From my understanding, illness affords me some level of prerogative?“ For a person claiming to be weak, Castiel managed to punch through the silence of the room, voice strong and demanding.

Dean couldn’t resist the tone and he glanced up. Then he looked harder. A lopsided grin played across Castiel’s lips. The softness of it contrasted with his focused gaze. He stared at Dean as though he were issuing orders to a soldier. Dean tried very hard to resist the challenging sparkle in Castiel’s eye, but in the end he was weak for it. A smile cracked across his stern facade as longing soaked his entire being. “Gotta say, you’re getting better at this.” 

“Better at what?” Castiel asked, the very projection of wide-eyed innocence. 

Dean laughed. “I’m not even gonna start with that.” He nudged his computer a few inches further away, then stared at the casing. “Listen, I’m sorry. For how I’ve been on this hunt. And for how I’ve been acting lately. In general. It’s been...outta line.”

Castiel looked at Dean like he was a wild bird barely settled on the edge of the bed. He sat so very still, as though a sudden movement would spook Dean to flight again. His voice dropped to just above a whisper. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” Castiel said, watching Dean so earnestly that it sent a shock down Dean’s spine. 

“I do, though.” Dean braced himself like he was jumping into a fistfight, his heart trying to hammer its way out of his chest. “For a while… For a long time now I’ve been having these feelings. About you.” Rather than assuaging his nerves, hearing it spoken aloud immediately plunged him into dread. 

“Feelings?” Castiel looked at him with the eye of a general, his next question ringing with gentle command. “What kind of feelings?”

Dean snorted and gazed upward like there were answers written on the ceiling. “All kinds, I guess. Every kind. I’ve been sort of…” He scratched his neck. “The thing you gotta understand here is…that you’re really hot.” He said it all in a rush. “And I mean…” he gestured broadly towards Castiel, fingers flicking to indicate his entire stretch of his body. “You really are. But also…you. You’re _you_ and…it’s just…hot.”

“You find me attractive?” Castiel asked. His eyes were alight with mischief. “Physically?”

Dean, ears warm, nodded. 

“And, you find me ‘hot,’” he said, fingers quoting in the air, “Emotionally.”

Dean coughed at that and rolled his eyes upward. “I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable,” Dean said and glanced down, only for his look to pin Castiel against the headboard. He narrowed his eyes. “You’re…fucking with me,” he said in an attempt at a growl.

Castiel couldn’t contain his smile anymore and he shrugged. “A little.”

Dean laughed and knocked his knuckles against Castiel’s knee. “You asshole,” he said, without any heat. He let his hand fall to the mattress and linger there, just barely pressing against the folds of Castiel’s pants. “You don’t seem surprised by any of this,” he said finally, after a long pause.

Castiel leaned back with a long inhale, the movement pressing his knee further into Dean’s knuckles. When he finally exhaled, he led with, “No. No, I wasn’t surprised. Not by your feelings, actually. But by mine? I have…” He shook his head and said with a wry smile, “Sorry, but it is strange to speak of such things when neither of us is in danger of dying.” 

Dean glowered at Castiel and patted the vial of grace under his shirt meaningfully. Castiel dismissed it with a flickering eye roll. “I left Heaven for myself,” Castiel continued. “I made that choice a long time ago. But I don’t think I would have ever done it if it hadn’t been for you. You and Sam have taken me in. Been family when my brothers and sisters would prefer my death. Been solace when my mission seemed bleakest. Been _something_ when I had nothing. It took me many years to name it, and still more to say it out loud.” He looked down at his hands and Dean realized with a shock that his fingers trembled a little where they lay in his lap. He watched Castiel focus on his hands and saw how the trembling subsided with Castiel’s attention. Castiel was still commander of his own body, even if he was unexpectedly without grace. 

Dean yearned to comfort him and then, with a shock, realized that he could. He reached across the few feet that separated them and took Castiel’s hands in his own, folding them in tightly. “I got an idea what that’s like,” he said.

Castiel laughed, but it was a quiet thing. “I love you like it’s a part of me, Dean. And it feels natural, like a line etched across my palm.”

Dean sucked in a breath and let it out. It was funny how he could feel grounded in the world, warm skin next to warm skin, and still feel like he was plummeting through the wildest reaches of space, stars wheeling on every side. “I love you,” Dean said, hating the tremor in his voice. “I’m so sorry things have been shit. There’s just one war after another and it never feels like the right time—” His voice cracked and he cleared it. “Sorry.”

“We do enjoy the worst of times,” Castiel agreed. “But you make it among my best. In all my thousands of years, I have never allowed myself to feel this way.” Perhaps it was humanity that made him bold, because his next question sent a shock of longing and disbelief through Dean. “Can I kiss you?”

“God yes,” Dean said and he leaned forward so quickly that they knocked teeth when their mouths joined. He laughed against Castiel’s lips, a soft exhalation, then pressed in again, more slowly. 

It was almost prosaic, how perfectly normal it felt to kiss Castiel. They’d touched before; they’d touched many times. Palm to cheek or chest to chest; intimate embraces cloaked in friendship were their speciality. 

At first Castiel held very still, his lips slightly parted and eyes closed like he was recording data to unravel at a later, more convenient time. If Dean had known him slightly less, he would have taken it for that - a kind of lukewarm passion. Instead, he recognized Castiel’s sudden stillness as watchfulness. The more he felt, the more he tended to resemble an unmovable stone, soaking in the world around him, gathering intelligence. Dean slid his lips down to close around Castiel’s lower lip. He sucked on it, gently at first and then with a firm tug that teased forth a small moan. 

Dean grinned against Castiel’s lips and he followed it with a light scrape of teeth and a slip of a tongue - just the slightest bit - along his soft inner lip. Maybe Castiel couldn’t feel him the way he could with his grace intact; Dean knew he was often a symphony of emotion, tension, and pain and that had to leak through to Castiel more often than not. Right now, Castiel couldn’t feel his heartbeat, or taste the echoes of his desire with his grace tucked in a bottle under Dean’s shirt. But there was more than one way to communicate. 

Dean pulled Castiel’s hands forward and apart, spreading them to rest on his knees. He let go, allowing his own hands to knead the firm muscle of Castiel’s thighs. He groaned unwittingly. It felt strange to be so close and not be embroiled in the middle of a fist fight, or struggling to survive, or saying what might be final goodbyes. Dean packaged this thought up and delivered it to Castiel in the play of their lips, their tangled tongues. He wrote Castiel missives of love in his shortened breaths and the moans trapped in his throat. 

Dean moved his mouth away for a moment, skating his lips along Castiel’s jaw. “Cas, this okay?”

“Yes,” Castiel said, in a voice so deep with longing that it flicked shivers down Dean’s spine. “God yes. Don’t stop.” He moved his mouth to tease his lips along the stubble of Dean’s jaw. Dean seized the opportunity, diving to close his mouth against the cords of Castiel’s throat, nibbling at the warm skin. Castiel moaned brokenly. 

Dean broke away, panting, because of course Castiel was hurt. His throat still sported a slash - bandaged, sealed, but still broken by Dean’s hand just that morning. “You okay?” he asked, idiotic as his lust overlaid the shaking terror of that morning.

Castiel jerked his chin back, putting enough space between them that Dean’s gut instantly plummeted, but all he did was fix Dean with a baleful gaze. “For the last time,” he shot one hand up to grab Dean’s jacket and haul him closer. “Don’t ask stupid questions,” he said against Dean’s lips and then his tongue was pressing inside, stroking the roof of Dean’s mouth, running along his teeth, lips sucking at Dean like the fires of creation had forged him for just this one purpose. Dean moaned into the assault; the ability to speak any kind of coherent sentence fled. 

They kissed and the clock on the bedside stand ticked. They kissed and the light behind the curtains changed from a dusky sunset rose to bottled orange from the streetlamp outside. 

Dean pulled away first, laying a hand along Castiel’s chest. “We gotta… You’re still recovering,” Dean said, licking his lips. “You need—”

“What I need has nothing to do with rest, Dean Winchester.” Up until that point, while their mouths explored lips and ears and throats, their hands had settled chastely on each others’ waist or knees, like fumbling students at a school dance. Now, Castiel blew past that, placing one hand on the bulge in Dean’s increasingly tight jeans. 

Dean sucked in a sharp breath, hips jerking into his touch and feeling for a moment like he might explode from just that brief attention. “Fuck, Cas,” he said with astonished laugh. 

“That’s the idea,” Castiel agreed and pressed harder, moving his fingers down so that they massaged Dean low, dragging at his jeans. A line of desire ignited from the subtle tug and Dean shifted his hips, searching for more friction, more sensation. As he shifted, his computer edged against his hip and Dean grabbed for Castiel’s wrist, holding him away and pulling back long enough to say, “Let me just move this.” 

Castiel pulled his hand away but his gaze never wavered. He reached for Dean’s computer and the takeout bag; Dean swept the cloth around the amulet again and plucked it from the bedspread. They deposited the extraneous objects onto the bedside table and then Castiel pushed away from the mattress. He stood over Dean, one knee propped on the bed and the other foot firmly planted on the floor. His erection was obvious, tenting his pants and Dean longed to lean forward to tease at the tip and find out what kind of noises he could pull from Castiel. But there were clothes in the way - too many clothes. He rose to his knees and helped Castiel push away his coat, letting it fall to the floor. Castiel’s suit jacket followed and Dean whipped his own jacket off and tossed it towards the other side of the bed. He arrowed back towards Castiel, disappointed to see him already drawing his hastily loosened tie over his head. He’d wanted to do it but…but that was okay. There would be other times. 

_There would be other times._ That thought sunk in and he paused on his knees, watching as Castiel began to unbutton his shirt, fingers clumsy with haste.

 _There would other times._ Wild joy filled him like an expanding bomb and his mood shift must have been apparent because Castiel stopped on the fourth button. “Dean?”

“I’m just so fucking lucky,” he confessed, and damn if words turned out to be far too shallow to fully describe the euphoria of finally being allowed to touch and take and give everything he wanted to Castiel.

Castiel didn’t reply in words; perhaps he was beyond the point of proper coherence as well. He grunted possessively and swung his other leg onto the bed, knee-walking to straddle Dean’s lap. Castiel settled himself there like he’d received an engraved invitation, sliding his hands down to Dean’s shirt hem and pushing his fingers under the fabric. 

There was nothing light about his touch. Castiel’s fingers pushed at his skin, scraping against Dean’s ribs as he drew his shirt up. Dean grinned and arched his back as he lifted his arms. The movement flexed his hips and the sweet drag of their bodies that followed was almost as rewarding as Castiel buckling inwards with a broken cry, fists clenched in Dean’s bunched shirt. 

Wriggling away just enough to pull his shirt off the rest of the way, Dean darted forward to suck a mark into Castiel’s neck. The vial of grace pressed between them, heavy and warm against his skin. 

Dean used his teeth and his tongue; he made it count. His fingers flew along Castiel’s buttons, pulling his shirt away, pushing the fabric down his broad well-muscled shoulders and letting the shirt slide down Castiel’s arms. 

Castiel tried to reach for Dean but his wrists stopped short, imprisoned by his almost-shed shirt. He growled at the impediment and Dean leaned away to help him tug at his shirtsleeves until, one by one, his arms were freed. 

Dean let momentum and Castiel’s pressing attention push him back, collapsing until he lay on the bed, Castiel’s weight pinning him down into the bedspread. It took Castiel a moment to process the change in position; just long enough for Dean to enjoy the view of Castiel’s bared chest and thick arms. And then they were sliding up against each other again, skin warm where they touched, lips tangling like this was their new language. Castiel spread his knees wider, thighs nudging against Dean, hips rolling like he was thinking about setting up a rhythm. 

Dean slid his hands down the ridges and valley of Castiel’s back, down until his fingers caught against Castiel’s belt, then sliding them further so they could grab his ass. He squeezed, then pulled him close and hell, if that wasn’t all he needed right there. He could come like this, rubbing against Castiel in enthusiastic abandon, hands on his incredible ass and lips sucking a rose into the hollow of his throat. But there was a dim part of him that lounged in his mind like a movie lothario and told him in no uncertain terms that he - Dean Winchester, consummate lover - could do better. 

He bucked his hips up and levered his body, relying on surprise to unseat Castiel and roll him to the mattress. Dean pinned him with one leg, straddling a thigh as he rolled his fingers across Castiel’s solar plexus, then trailed them down his taut stomach to the belt buckle.

“Ah!” Castiel said, caught between surprise and epiphany. His hands flew up like they might speed along Dean’s as he worked open Castiel’s belt and undid the top button. 

Dean took a few seconds to let his fingers settle on the zipper pull. His eyes flicked to Castiel’s, watching for any sign that he might not want this as much as Dean did. But Castiel’s lips were parted, and eyes half-lidded with lust. He whined a little as Dean’s finger brushed along the metal teeth of the zipper, which seemed like answer enough to Dean’s unspoken question. He pulled the zipper down and parted the fabric. 

Castiel’s cock pushed at his underwear, a thick line of desire already damp at the tip. Dean slid one knee back so he could angle his body, then leaned down and licked at the tip, wetting the fabric further. “Oh, Dean,” Castiel said and one hand came up to rest in his hair, fingertips curling and tugging where he could gain purchase. Dean licked and sucked at Castiel’s cock through the fabric, then rose up on his knees to rapidly undo his own belt buckle before the strain of kneeling in his closed jeans finished him. His own cock throbbed and Castiel slid one hand from his calf to his inner thigh, and then around to the fabric-covered bulge at Dean’s groin. He pressed there until Dean shifted again, teasing his own body away. 

“You first,” Dean told him and reverently pulled away the rest of his clothing. He worked his mouth and hands in concert then, until Castiel became an incoherent mess on the mattress, his pants around his knees and flushed cock buried in Dean’s mouth. 

Dean groaned around Castiel’s cock like this was just an extension of the new language between them - no dictionary needed. Castiel cried brokenly, hips jerking, cock dragging against Dean’s lips as he came. 

Later, after his dazed look had faded into blissful ecstasy, Castiel rolled onto his side and plunged his hand into Dean’s underwear, his tongue claiming Dean’s mouth. Castiel stroked him that way, greedy and fast and fierce, the vial of grace cutting stonework shapes into their bodies as they strained against each other. 

Outside it was quiet; the occasional car shushed down the main street, rainwater splashing to the curb in wet, burbling washes. Inside the motel room, it was quieter still. They’d shed the rest of their clothing and buried themselves in the blankets, pillows clumped together into a nest and their foreheads together, arms together, legs together. 

They traded lazy kisses. 

“Mmmph,” Castiel said, shifting so that his thigh fit a little more securely between Dean’s legs. 

“That bad, huh?”

Dean received a stern prod in the small of his back. “That good.”

“We’ll have to do that again sometime.” Dean couldn’t stop his grin; it grew from the ball of electrostatic joy spinning where his heart should be. 

“Definitely,” Castiel said, sounding decisive enough about it that a pulse of interest shot through Dean. Laughing softly, Castiel pressed up against the evidence of Dean’s desire.

Gradually, Dean became aware of the the vial of grace cutting between them and he shifted so that it fell between the hollow of their bodies. With it nestled between him and the bed, it somehow seemed safer out of sight. 

“Hey…about your grace.” Dean drew a line across Castiel’s shoulder with the tip of his nose while one of his hands continued to stroke a comforting rhythm on his hip. “Did you always have a bottle waiting for it in your coat?” 

Castiel hummed thoughtfully, clearly mulling over the proper words to say. “No,” he said finally. “Grace extraction was never part of my original arsenal. But then there was Metatron and…it snowballed from there. It became another weapon and…another path.” He drew back with a painted-on smile and Dean pressed a reassuring kiss against it. “On this planet, an angel’s grace can become a liability.”

“That kinda freaks me out,” Dean admitted. “That you’re ready for that. That you _have_ to be ready to just...cut out a part of yourself.” He paused, looking for the right words. “Your grace. Your angelic self. It’s a part of who you are, man.”

“Sometimes I’ve wondered if…if it would be easier like this? Easier as a human.”

“To be with me?” Cracks splintered along the joyful sphere spinning in Dean’s chest.

“To be on Earth. To...to experience life here.”

“I want you, however I can get you,” Dean said. He gripped Castiel’s hip. “But I’d be lying if i didn’t say that you - mojo’d up you - isn’t a huge turn on.”

Castiel grinned at that. “Really?” 

“Really.” Dean shook his head. “Really, really fucking hot. And I…I love it all because it’s a part of you. So when we gank whatever’s in the woods, you’re taking this grace back and you and I are gonna see how long your endurance holds out.”

“Oh?” Castiel asked, voice resonant with surprised pleasure.

“As a matter of scientific inquiry of course,” Dean said.

“Of course,” Castiel murmured with false gravity. He drew Dean’s head to his chest and began to comb his fingers through his hair. It was incredibly soothing. Intoxicating. Dean let his eyes slide shut and felt the swooping sensation of falling that always presaged sleep. 

They dozed together. Outside, rain pattered against the window like a concealing veil.

Sam’s phone call roused Dean from a shallow dream. He blinked away fuzzy impressions of hands and lips, only to realize that he was still pressed up against Castiel. They were both utterly naked, and it was absolutely delightful. 

The phone rang again.

Dean scowled and peeled himself away from Castiel far enough to flail for his phone on the bedside table. Beside him, Castiel twitched in his sleep, skin rosy where they’d fallen asleep touching. 

“What’dya got?” Dean asked, trying to will his voice into a tenor resembling wakefulness. 

“We found it.” Sam sounded triumphant. “In _Magick and its Bindings_.” There was the sound of heavy leather and paper sliding across the wood table of the library. “It’s a fairy curse. Fairy magic. It feeds off of other magic. Like a bottom feeder in a pond. That amulet calls forth the curse. It’s supposed to destroy just the magic of your enemies but if you mess it up, it spreads to pretty much every magical thing.”

“Fairy magic,” Dean groaned. “Fun.”

“Annoyingly persistent magic,” Rowena interjected, sounding sour. 

“Rowena, do you deal much with this stuff?”

“Ach, the fae? I don’t look like an idiot, do I?” There was a pause, as though she were soliciting opinions. 

“You said the amulet was near the hunter’s body, right?” Sam smoothly interjected. “Well, we tracked down a dealer who sold an amulet like that at an auction just a few months ago to a young, male, ‘creepy military type.’” 

“That sounds about right,” Dean admitted, staunchly ignoring how that might be applied to him as well. “So how do we destroy it?”

“Well,” Sam prevaricated. “Destroying just the amulet is probably going to make it worse. That amulet started the curse and directed it towards the witch. But that protection sigil tattoo you told me about? Rowena thinks that the curse anchored on the witch, instead of just burning through and dying out when she was dead.”

“It’s like a gate,” Rowena explained. “To the fae realm. Right now, attached to that poor witch, the gate is open and the cursed mushrooms thrive on it. You’ve got to close the gateway to destroy the fungus.”

“But we can’t destroy the amulet? Great.” Dean pushed a weary finger to the bridge of his nose. Beside him, Castiel stirred.

“Mmmph,” he said sleepily, eyes screwed shut against the light in the room. “Dean?”

Dean flushed warm all over for more reasons that he could begin to enumerate. “I’m here,” he assured Castiel. “Talkin’ to Sam.”

Castiel scrunched his nose, then opened first one eye, then the other. “Hello, Sam.”

“Hey, Cas.” Sam’s tone was friendly and interested, and didn’t seem to be aware at all that his brother currently had half his body pressed up against Castiel’s bare skin. “I was just filling Dean in on the amulet. You can’t destroy it,” he stressed. “But there are a couple ways to defuse the curse and send the magic back to the fae dimension.”

“Well,” Rowena’s voice was sour. “You could burn it all, too. Burn it out with fire.”

“Just fire?” Dean asked, already mentally calculating fuel loads and where he could pick up a flamethrower in rural Missouri.

“Oh aye. Ordinary fire will do. Oh,” she said sweetly as though it were an afterthought. “You will have to burn everything. _Everyone_? Those woods will have to go or it’ll live on. That fungus is a clone of itself. It’s one being, stretched throughout the woods and the town. Destroy some and if there’s even a bit that survived—”

“Tayla’s car is still parked at the truck stop twenty miles away,” Castiel said, his entire bearing changed now that there was talk of hunting. “We would need to torch that as well. And she’s been at the hospital for hours now.”

Dean frowned. “Okay, burning sounds like a shit option. How do we manage door number two?”

Sam cleared his throat awkwardly. “Uh. Well. According to the lore we have on hand, the only recorded successful attempt to stop one of these fairy curses was a, um, a…”

“Sexual counter-curse,” Rowena interjected with relish. “Sex magic, to be perfectly plain. Fungus is all about reproduction, after all. It’s inherently sexual by its spreading nature. Fight sex with sex, as they say!”

“Nobody says that,” Sam said wearily.

“I’d be happy to head up,” Rowena said sweetly, “if any of you strapping lads would…”

“Can anybody perform the spell?” Castiel asked.

“Sorry?” Dean said, almost dropping the phone in surprise. 

“Can anybody perform the sex ritual?” He met Dean’s eye meaningfully and Dean felt a hot thrill flow through him. 

“Of course,” Rowena said. “Though who do you—?” There was a long silence, during which Dean sighed and wondered just how suddenly explicit Rowena’s imagination had gone. “Oh,” she said with a merry edge to her voice. “I see.”

“What?” asked Sam. “What do you—?” 

A flurry of whispering scraped in the background and Dean seriously considered hanging up the phone and communicating by text for the rest of the case.

“Uh, yeah.” Dean said in the sudden silence. “We got it covered here. Just send us the info on the ritual and we’ll take care of it.”

“Seriously?” Sam said, but was cut off from saying anything else by Dean pressing the button on his phone to end the call. 

Dean rolled his toe along Castiel’s calf before hooking their legs together and sliding closer. He caressed Castiel’s side with a sigh, trailing his fingers down to his ass and squeezing the firm flesh there. He grinned fondly. “So,” he said in his best impression of a pick up line. “Wanna go break a curse with me?”


	6. Chapter Six

They woke up two hours before dawn, dressing in the static silence that lay between them. Castiel carefully buttoned his rumpled white shirt like it was medieval armor. 

“You know I’m just gonna take that off again, right?” Dean lounged against the dresser, arms crossed and one booted foot propped up on the bed. He leered at Castiel.

Castiel arched a haughty brow. “It’s the only shirt I have.”

“Well, don’t come crying to me if I rip off half the buttons ‘cause of this spell.”

“If you rip my shirt,” Castiel proposed with a fond smile, “Then I get to keep one of yours.”

Dean returned his grin. “Deal.” He surveyed the supplies lined up on the dresser. “Okay, we’ve got seventeen crystals, five candles - cookie scented, thanks so much for that. Two sharpies, one blanket. Am I forgetting anything?”

“I’ve got the lube,” Castiel said, patting his coat pocket.

Dean’s foot dropped to the ground with a resounding _thunk_. “You can’t just say stuff like that,” Dean said with a startled laugh. “I’m still not over watching porn with you as ‘research for a case.’”

Castiel clucked his tongue in irritation, but he let a sly smile light his features. “It’s not my fault I’d never heard of a ‘sixty-nine.’”

“First of all,” Dean said, starting to shove their supplies into his weapons duffle, “You just say sixty-nine. As in, you up for sixty-nine, babe?’ Second, not knowing that? That’s entirely on you, man. How old are you now? A billion?”

Castiel really did scowl at this. “I had other priorities for most of that time.” 

“Sure, sure, battles to plan. Harps to strum.”

Castiel wheeled around and stalked towards the bathroom. He endured Dean’s laughter with a ramrod-straight spine, absolutely refusing to let him see the twitching smile still tugging at the corners of his mouth. 

The truth was, of course, that Castiel was perfectly aware of more... _facts_ about sex than Dean would ever learn in a lifetime. Observing humanity and dwelling within a handful of extremely varied vessels afforded him with a unique outlook and range of experience - even if most of it wasn’t first hand. But there was a vast ocean of difference between knowing about something, and actively pursuing it. _Craving_ it. Because Dean was a priority and sex was important to him, it became a priority for Castiel. It was like he’d been reading a map for years, only now finally stepping foot on the trail. 

Castiel frowned as he washed his hands at the sink, focus blurring until his fingers were a formless, meaningless tangle under the running water. He wanted Dean. He craved Dean like food. Like air for starved lungs. It would be so easy to dismiss this new carnal turn as a byproduct of Castiel’s temporary humanity. But the truth was, that fire had smoldered, barely banked, for a very long time. He suspected that even with his grace, he would have tumbled , shaking, into physical intimacy with Dean. Castiel turned off the water and clutched at the edge of the sink, palms slipping on the formica. He breathed slowly. Deliberately. _Oh_ , how he wanted that man.

Castiel emerged with his hands still slightly damp, to find Dean staring at the floor with a crooked grin. He looked up when Castiel approached. “I can not believe,” he said in what was a clearly a falsely aggrieved tone, “that we had to conserve our ‘sexual energies’ all night. I swear to god, man, the moment we’re done with this, you and me are going on a trip.”

“A hunting trip?” Castiel asked, dropping his head to one side in exaggerated confusion. 

Dean pushed away from the dresser and reached for Castiel, twisting his fingers into the fabric of his shirt and pulling him close. “You. Me. My car.”

“That sounds a bit cramped,” Castiel huffed, a little too breathlessly to sound blasé. 

Dean seemed to bend over him like a sheltering bough, his eyes intensely focused on Castiel’s mouth. His lips were parted and when Castiel laid a hand on his chest, he could feel Dean’s heartbeat raging like whitewater. Dean licked his lips and swayed forward. Only then did Castiel push him away gently, one eyebrow raised in admonition. 

“Right,” Dean said, taking a reluctant step backward. “Right. Packing. We’re packing. To go have public sex in the woods.”

“And stop a deadly magical curse.”

Dean laughed. “Like ya do.” He grabbed the duffle and swung the strap on to his shoulder. The bag rattled as Dean turned towards the door with a not-so-subtle tug at his jeans. “Better head out.”

Castiel shivered as a thrill of anticipation stole down his spine and pooled in the well of his hips. He followed Dean out the door.

The sky was still night-black; the spell had to reach its apex at dawn, which was still two hours away. Castiel shivered in his thin cotton layers. A chill cut the air, lingering from the perpetual cold, damp weather pattern currently sulking over the town of Morris.

As they climbed into the car, Castiel’s attention was caught by Dean, who lifted his hand to swiftly press it against his chest. The bottle of his grace must be swinging under his shirt again. Dean’s hand seemed to embrace it, holding it close to his skin - to his heart. Castiel swallowed and looked away, busying himself with closing his door and shifting in his seat. He would not remain human for long. Anticipation, longing, and worry warred for attention and Castiel quashed them down as best as he could. 

“You nervous?” Dean asked, as though reading his thoughts.

“Mmm. I’ve never attempted this type of magic before,” Castiel said slowly. He threaded his arms around each other, hugging warmth into himself. 

“You cold? Hold on.” Dean started the car and then fiddled with the Impala’s heater settings. A weak flow of cold, exhaust-scented air began to blow out of the vents. “I’ll turn it up once the engine’s warm enough. Thaw those iceblocks.” He winked at Castiel, who rolled his eyes.

“If you are referring to my feet, they weren’t that bad.”

“You shoved your feet between my legs!”

“I was holding you!”

“You were using me. Callously. As a heating pad.”

“Well,” Castiel conceded as Dean threw the car into drive and steered out of the parking lot. “You were very effective at it.” He picked at a crease in his pants. “I hope this works.”

“Well, Rowena seems to think it’ll work. And if it doesn’t we’ll go back to plan A.”

“Plan A?”

“Get you the hell out of town until this curse is toast.”

“Not happening,” Castiel informed him dryly and Dean grumbled out a begrudging acquiescence. Castiel watched him and tried to examine his feelings. If their relationship was an overcoat, Castiel mused, he had been wearing it inside out for years. It was functional and warm and familiar, but not quite...right. Resolving the sexual tension between them seemed to flip that. Now, all the pockets were exposed and the buttons were easy to reach and— 

Castiel frowned until Dean asked, “Hey, man, you okay?” He was staring at Castiel.

“I’m fine,” Castiel said. “Just thinking.” It was an escape-hatch kind of answer, but Dean seemed to accept it well enough and turned his attention back to the road. Perhaps, Castiel mused, Dean was feeling a bit at sea as well. 

They drove the last few blocks in contemplative silence, and when they got out of the car at the Abby Park lot, only the sound of two distant great horned owls broke the still morning. The owls called to each other across the lonely woods as Dean switched on a flashlight and led the way onto the trail. 

It was hard to imagine that the woods could get any quieter. But once they had hiked their way into the heart of the fungal-cursed zone, Castiel was struck by how silent, how still, how...dead it seemed. The persistent whir of insects and frog song was absent. With his other senses dulled by his mortal body, the world took on a muffled quality. It was like stepping onto another planet; safety lay far out of reach. 

The cabin lay in the grim darkness, misshapen now with earthstar growth. Its windows were blank eye sockets, wherever they were clear enough of mushrooms to reflect the beams of their flashlights. 

Dean stalked around to the back of the cabin, to where trees pressed densely against the rear shingles and their branches created a tent-like canopy, closing them in snugly against the wall. The earthstars were just as dense here, coughing spores where Castiel’s boots ran into them. 

Castiel rooted through the growth with the toe of his shoe. “Here,” he finally said, shining his flashlight onto a spot on the ground. Something glinted in the light. He’d unearthed one of the crystals surrounding the cabin. “I found the protective circle.”

“Awesome,” Dean said and stopped his own search to join Castiel. He shook his head. “Protective magic. Who’d have thought it could be such a bitch to work with?”

“Fairy magic operates on its own rules,” Castiel said, crouching down to clear more space around the crystal. The mushrooms felt spongy under his fingers and he lobbed them away into the darkness like they were primed grenades. “Here. Help me clear room for our circle.”

Rowena had guessed that the crystal circle, along with the protective spell on Beth Anders’ neck, had tried to deflect the fairy curse. Instead of disabling the curse, however, the protective magic had become corrupted. It had taken over Beth like a parasite, using her magic to gain a foothold throughout the forest of Morris. Once they cleared a circle big enough, they could set up their own protective ring of crystals; one that would overlap the other like a Venn diagram. When they performed their own spell, it would - in theory - seize the power from the original fairy curse and let them destroy it for good. 

It was far more theory and conjecture than Castiel was entirely comfortable in relying on. If something went wrong, he and Dean might end up trapped in the web of the mushroom spell, turned catalyst for it just like Beth Anders. He longed to burn it out with his grace. But of course, that was impossible. 

He and Dean shuffled along the ground, carefully clearing away a small circle of mostly bare earth. They laid their crystals along the edge of the cleared ring, then set candles in a pentagram within the crystals. Dean patted the blanket into a makeshift nest in the middle, covering the ground with at least a modicum of comfort. 

They stood back at last, and cast a critical eye over their handiwork, flashlights bobbing isolated circles of light over the newly set perimeter. “This looks good,” Castiel decided, and without further prompting, he slipped off his coat and tossed it to lay across the mushroom layer beyond. 

“Awesome,” Dean said, voice dripping with trepidation. Then he was joining Castiel in shedding his clothing. 

Cold air seeped into Castiel’s core as he unbuttoned his shirt and slipped his pants past his hips. Dean did the same, though with practiced speed, like they could rush and complete the spell faster if he only hurried a little at the outset. They needed to wait until sunrise, however. And before that, they needed to build up the energy to destroy the curse entirely.

Dean, pants pooled around his ankles, loosened the laces on his boots and slipped out of them, one at a time, to step onto the blanket. He shot a stern scowl in Castiel’s direction. “If you get mushroom crap all over this blanket, I’m gonna be so pissed.”

“You have some spores smeared on your arm,” Castiel pointed out calmly. And while Dean spat disgusted curses and brushed at his arm, Castiel stepped out of his own shoes and pants, then shifted onto the sea of blanket. 

The faced each other then. For a moment, they stood in silence. Castiel couldn’t prevent an appreciative survey of Dean’s body. Nudity was a novelty between them, lending a strange veneer of vulnerability to each other. This close, he could see Dean’s chest rise and fall with each breath. He could pick out individual freckles and cold-raised goosebumps along his forearms. And all of it was easily observable with his own two eyes. It was a lovely and delicate thing, like a book written in language he’d only half heard in the past. His grace glowed on Dean’s chest, resting in the vial around his neck. 

“Ready?” Dean asked. 

Castiel glanced upward at the sullen sky, then nodded shortly in reply. He dropped to one knee and picked up the two markers Dean had tossed onto the blanket and rummaged in his nearby pants pocket for the bottle of lube and a simple silver lighter he had bought behind the counter of a Gas ‘n’ Sip several years ago. He dropped the lube at their feet, handed the markers up to Dean, and then snicked the lighter open. Carefully, he lit each candle until they were surrounded by a dull orange glow and the sticky-sweet smell of artificially derived cookie dough scent. 

Castiel dropped the lighter onto the bare ground just off of the blanket and stood again. A knee popped as he straightened and Dean laughed at him. “Newly human and already creaking joints? That didn’t take long.”

With a disparaging look down at Dean’s own knees, Castiel protested, “It has been a very long 24 hours. Too much time abed.”

“I’ll show you ‘too much time abed,’” Dean said, with promise written across his smile. He switched off their flashlights and tossed them aside as well. “How are we doing on time?”

Castiel hummed thoughtfully. It was hard to gauge the sunrise with the cloud cover, but they had checked the time when they had arrived at the cabin. Castiel might be without his grace, but he still possessed a settled comfort with the precise passage of time. “We timed it perfectly, I think.” He placed a finger to the hollow of Dean’s throat, watching in fascination as Dean’s body jolted with his sudden indrawn breath. Then, Castiel trailed his hand slowly down the smooth plane of Dean’s chest, following the path of the cord attached to the vial of grace. “I’ll tell you when it’s time,” he said. Anticipation spread in his abdomen like a diurnal flower peeling open in the morning. 

Castiel dropped his hand to wrap around Dean’s waist. With the other, he reached up to encircle the back of Dean’s neck. His lips sought Dean’s, pressing in confidently, warmly. He pulled back, just enough so their lips brushed as he said, “Let’s begin, then.”

Dean dropped his own hand to grab Castiel’s from around his waist, pushing a marker into it. His fingers were freezing where they met Castiel’s skin, but his gentle touch filled Castiel with warmth nonetheless.

Guided by the candlelight, they uncapped the markers and began the incantation that would signal the start of the spell. Three stanzas in, they were required to draw the casting sigils onto each other’s chests. They did so, somehow managing to do it simultaneously without wobbling or, in Dean’s case, succumbing to ticklish laughter from the unwavering lines passing over his ribs and along his sides. When they finished the sigils, they dropped the markers at their feet, just inside the circle of candles. 

Standing in front of each other, covered in beautifully intricate sigils, they finished the incantation in nearly perfect unison. At the close of the spell, they leaned towards each other and kissed again. 

This time when they kissed, the candles guttered low as magic swept around the circle. Warmth burned along the lines on his chest and, judging by Dean’s sharp breath, the same had happened to him. 

Castiel leaned in to claim Dean’s gasp, kissing him until it morphed into a low moan.The touch of their lips was a spark. As they opened their mouths to each other, the energy of the spell began to build. 

It was easy, at first. In the gloomy pre-dawn chill, Castiel had felt clumsy and slow. With Dean’s arms wrapped around him, fingertips beginning a slow, almost mindless caress, Castiel could relax. Together, their lips warmed and their bodies built off of each others’ nearness until the chilly bumps that had marred both of them had subsided. He combed one hand through Dean’s hair, guiding their kisses as the desire between them grew. 

Dean’s hips bucked a small, uncontrolled measure when Castiel nibbled at his lip and he grinned against their kiss and let his other hand settle onto Dean’s gloriously firm ass. He squeezed and pulled them together until Dean fell half forward, his leg slotting between Castiel’s so that they supported each other even as Castiel’s instincts urged him to drop to his knees and succumb to a frantic rhythm. 

The bottle of grace cut between them, rolling between them as they moved. Castiel used the slight discomfort to his advantage, sliding his body suggestively until the warm bottle dragged across Dean’s nipple, applying pressure. “Cas,” Dean moaned as the vial drew fiery lines between their bodies. “Cas, I—“

They kissed until Castiel began to feel weak in the knees. They kissed until Dean couldn’t control the desperate rhythmic slide of his hips, questing against Castiel for release. They were both hard, achingly so. Power buzzed between them. Within them.

Time began to blur and Castiel moaned and tried to chase after it with whatever rational part of him might remain. Then Dean nipped at his throat and clear thought left Castiel just as quickly as it had surfaced. 

“Knees?” Dean suggested. 

“God yes.” Castiel dropped with enthusiasm, landing on the blanket with an ungraceful _thump_ and pulling Dean down in front of him. 

The magic of the spell seemed to crackle between them now and Dean slipped a careful hand around Castiel’s cock and whispered, “Tell me when to stop.”

Castiel leaned into him, knees bracketing Dean, half-slit eyes trained on Dean’s hand slipping expertly along his cock. It was good, so good. So very… “I’m close,” Castiel gasped too soon and he whined, hips chasing Dean’s hand as he pulled away. He ached with unspent pleasure and before Castiel could dwell on it, he took Dean in hand and stirred him to the same level, watching in wonder as Dean’s mouth fell open. He dropped his head back like he might surrender to it. “Are you close?” Castiel asked, throat tight with desire. 

“Mmmm,” Dean moaned, and then hitched a breath. His hand flew to Castiel’s wrist, holding it tight and pulling him away. “Fuck,” he said. “Yeah.” He breathed for a moment, looking pained. Then he leaned into Castiel again, and dropped his hands to rest along his thighs. 

They opened their mouths to each other again, breath passing between them like currency. The power built. 

The strength of the spell lay in the wait, in the pulse and slow build of desire. Castiel could understand, now, why Rowena claimed sexual spells to be so difficult. It was a very careful dance to hold back until the end of the spell, particularly with Dean writhing against him and this intimacy so new between them. 

The sigils glowed on their chests, muddying the grace-blue light. They teased at each other. Pushed and pulled at each other. Around them, the sky turned from plum to purple to a clearing deep blue. The cloud layer dissipated as they made love and the oppressive gray that had blanketed the town lifted slowly, like mist rising from a pond. 

Castiel climbed onto Dean’s lap, reached down, and traced both hands along his ass, pulling and spreading the flesh. Sweat beaded on their skin from the heat of their bodies, and the fire from the spell. Castiel dipped his head to bite gently at Dean’s collarbone, delighting in the way Dean slumped into his arms, opening up to him so easily. He pushed with the weight of his body until Dean toppled backward so that he sprawled across the blanket, legs wide. “Cas! Can you—“ Dean’s hand crept down to his own cock, flushed and full. 

Castiel hummed, robbed of coherency, and pulled Dean’s hand away. He slung one leg off of Dean so that he was no longer straddling him and shifted backwards on his knees, until they were separated by a few feet. He reached out and pulled a finger up the length of Dean’s cock, delighting in the way it jumped as Dean twitched beneath his touch. “We should do a...a sixty-nine,” he suggested with false gravity. 

Dean laughed, a short delighted outburst. He rolled his eyes expansively, head rocking against the blanket in exaggeration. “You fucker,” he said. “Also, yeah.” Dean shifted forward, running a hand along Castiel’s hip until it met his waist. He pushed gently, and Castiel let himself be toppled, landing on his side and stretching out his legs opposite from Dean’s position. 

They shifted alongside each other, their movements punctuated by amused exhalations and overstimulated gasps as they tried to work out a good position. If they stretched out too much, Castiel lost the warmth of Dean’s lips wrapped around his member, or Dean would break off, hissing, “Teeth! Teeth, Cas.” But eventually, they curled into each other just right.

Like this, they were their own microcosm. Curled around each other, they formed a circle of power, tuning into each other’s movements. This position held balance, a curious mix of restraint and abandon. The spell glowed hotter, bolstered by their efforts. 

Later, 11 minutes and 28 seconds later, to be exact, Castiel lay on his back. Dean knelt between his legs and nibbled a line along his inner thigh while they both tried to bank their passion in slow caresses. Castiel rolled his head against the blanket, nearly lost in bliss. He dropped his chin to one side and opened half lidded eyes. “Dean,” Castiel gasped.

“Mmm, I know, baby,” Dean murmured into the flesh of his thigh. 

“No,” Castiel grunted, shifting up so he could lean against one elbow. With his other arm he grasped Dean’s tousled hair and tugged. “Look.” He dropped a firm finger to Dean’s chin and nudged it to one side. “They’re moving.”

Surrounding their protective circle, the earthstars pulsed. The fleshy mushrooms heaved against the unresisting air, star-like appendages spasming between wide open and half-shut. 

“That’s…” Dean said, and trailed off, seemingly speechless. His shock was understandable. It was almost sexual, and more than a little grotesque. “That’s disgusting,” Dean finally decided, and shuddered theatrically. Around them, mushrooms quivered. 

A quizzical, calculating look descended on Dean and he dipped his head suddenly, licking a stripe from the base of Castiel’s cock to the tip. Castiel yelped in surprise but he could see the earthstars jump, as though they were an extension of his own body.

“Heh, that’s kind of fun,” Dean said, looking up at Castiel with a Cheshire grin. Castiel’s response was to scowl, then press his hand to Dean’s head, urging him down again. Dean opened his lips obligingly, and the spell built further. 

Around them, the fairy fungus tapped into their magic, or maybe their spell did the opposite. Either way, Castiel could feel it as Dean laved Castiel’s balls, circling the soft skin with his tongue. Castiel could feel the magic with every moan Dean pulled from him. The magic built, and the fungus was hungry for it. Dean pulled his hand along Castiel’s spit-slicked length with all the confidence he had for slinging a machete, and the earthstars trembled.

Dean shifted to his knees when Castiel tugged at his hair, and let himself be guided to straddle Castiel’s hips. Their mouths met as Castiel’s kissed him deeply, body trembling with unspent release. Castiel held Dean with one arm, and felt around for the bottle of lube with the other.

“Hey, you with me?” Dean asked, rutting against Castiel’s stomach.

“I...um… Lube,” Castiel managed to say and Dean pulled back with a mumbled swear and cast around for the bottle instead, flipping over the mussed folds of the blanket.

Dean found the bottle quickly in the growing light and he snapped open the cap and drizzled a generous amount over Castiel’s fingertips. “You ready for--?”

“Yes.” Castiel groaned fervently. He shifted, sliding his knuckles down the small of Dean’s back and down to his hole. He pressed a slicked fingertip there. Dean moaned at the touch, pushing back into it and Castiel held him with one palm along the small of his back and the other hand working at Dean’s entrance. 

It took more coordination than he expected. Working into Dean slowly was surprisingly difficult. Dean pushed against his fingers, hissing. Their cocks pressed between them. Dean’s lips, Dean’s teeth were on his mouth, on his throat. It was dizzyingly difficult to concentrate. “Come on, baby,” Dean urged as Castiel worked a finger inside. “Want to feel you. Come on!”

Castiel opened Dean up with his fingers, stopping for lube or to catch his breath or slow his racing pulse enough to feel like he wouldn’t combust instead of come. He pushed Dean to his back and found the position was easier to handle. Dean lay with his knees up, eyes closed in bliss, pulling back on his thigh so that Castiel could work his way inside faster. _Faster_.

His fingers plunged into Dean readily now, like that movement alone was all he needed to get both of them off. The magic burned through him, Dean tight around his fingers. Castiel found it almost unbearable, and certainly unforgettable. 

“Almost dawn,” Dean gasped, dropping his leg so his foot thudded into the hard ground.

It took Castiel a moment to process the words, his brain meandering around the phrase, slowly identifying the language and translating it to words he could understand. He pulled his mouth from Dean’s firmed nipple and rolled his neck to look upwards. The sky above them was starting to filter into a robin’s egg blue in a sky surprisingly clear of cloud cover. “Oh,” Castiel said at last. “We should…”

“Yeah,” Dean said and he gripped Castiel’s arm and pulled himself up to sit. Carefully, he maneuvered Castiel’s shoulders, instructing him wordlessly to sit still and ready with his hips rotated forward and his torso angled back. 

Dean settled onto his lap and ran a lube-smeared hand down Castiel’s chest until he reached his cock. He closed his fist around it and stroked firmly, once. Then, apparently satisfied, he lowered himself. 

As Castiel’s cock slid into Dean, crackles of electrostatic power surged between them, jumping from Dean’s carefully dancing pelvis and Castiel’s bowed abdomen. 

The heat of him was exquisite. Dean anchored Castiel with the weight of his own body, holding him to the blanket with every push of his hips as he began to work himself on Castiel’s cock. They were both damp now, with sweat or beading dew, Castiel couldn’t tell. Lube spread slickness in odd places where they’d touched and Castiel’s fingers slipped on Dean’s ass as he gripped him and pulled him close, closer, like he could consume Dean this way, or be consumed. 

“Getting close,” Castiel panted. “Dean,” he groaned, practically bereft of words. “I’m so close. Do it. Do it now.” He wrapped a hand around Dean’s cock and Dean nodded rapidly, past speech. He stalled in his rocking and grabbed the bottle of grace from the cord around his neck while Castiel gripped his hips and thrust into him. A moan caught in his throat as Dean gasped and uncapped the vial.

A growing blue trail of grace snaked from the bottle like a questing finger searching for Castiel. His returned powers would be the final kick to their spell, lending it a turbo boost (as Dean had put it). Their power would overcome the fae fungus and, if all went well, burn it down to the molecular level.

Castiel parted his lips, and let his grace enter his body. Instantly, several things happened. 

“Close your eyes,” Castiel cried out unnecessarily, because Dean’s eyes were already screwed shut, his head tucked down protectively. His body still moved along Castiel’s length, like he had no choice but to move. 

Castiel’s grace was familiar, like a cat curled on a warm windowsill. His grace was solid, like a strong spine running along his core. His grace was sense, opening his perception up to the world that lay outside of his own body’s limits.

He felt Dean’s presence like a rushing wind. Castiel gripped Dean’s hips and pulled and strained and thrust into him. While his hands held Dean’s body, his grace gasped into Dean’s mind like a exhale during a kiss. 

Ordinarily, the blast from reabsorbing grace would hurt a human. Instead, the fire of it rushing home to Castiel ran through Dean like an orgasm. 

Dean clenched around Castiel as Castiel’s grace soaked back into the furthest crevices of his being. The introduction of Castiel’s grace felt like release, and he could sense that Dean could see an echo of it as well, their connection augmented by the spell. Dean cried out, incoherently. 

The sigil drawn on Castiel’s chest hurt. The pain and pleasure of it drove him to moan in ecstasy. He thrust into Dean, forehead on his shoulder and hand between their bodies, stroking. Pulling. He gripped Dean’s hip. “Gonna— Dean!” he gasped.

A picture formed in Castiel’s mind as soon as he invoked Dean’s name, like a photo slipped into a pocket. Castiel, in this image, rose high above the trees. He stood tall, a sky-high shimmering version of his multidimensional self. Dean rose with him too, his soul swelling to match until both of them were larger and brighter and stranger than their mortal shells. For a moment they hovered there, a mushroom of power above the treetops. 

Dawn broke, and so did they, pulsing into each other exhausted and ecstatic. Their cries echoed in the woods and their shuddering breaths sounded thunderous to Castiel’s suddenly sensitive ears. 

When they came down, it was slowly. With the spell crested, it took Castiel a moment to realize that his chest no longer burned. Now, the lines on his skin were just permanent marker, and nothing more. 

Dean dropped his forehead down and groaned, satiation and exhaustion evident. “Holy shit,” he murmured, and Castiel laughed.

They were a mess, coated in lube and Dean’s come rolling a slow trail down his chest. Castiel breathed and his hand slipped to the curve of Dean’s thigh. Dean still shook with tremors of release, and hissed when Castiel’s thumb ventured too close to the inner folds of his thighs. “Careful,” he whispered. “Fuck.” Dean rested against Castiel, who thrilled in being able to hear his heartbeat and breath catch as they held each other, and let go of the spell. 

Dean pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the curve of Castiel’s neck. “You okay?” Castiel nodded. Words seemed beyond him. “You think we did it?” 

Castiel sucked in a slow breath, then rotated his head to the side lazily. “Oh!” he said in surprise. “I do.” 

Dean lifted his chin and joined him in surveying the woods. They were still surrounded by mushrooms behind the quiet cabin in the densely wooded forest. But now they were shriveled, dried out like they’d had all the vitality burned out of them. 

Dean stared at the dessicated growth, then carefully leaned back, levering himself upward to pull away from Castiel. Castiel gasped, and Dean hissed, and then laughed. He met Castiel’s eye and grinned slowly. “So that was a trip,” he said.

“Understatement,” Castiel agreed and wanted to kiss him. A half a breath later, he remembered that he could. Castiel wrapped a hand around the back of Dean’s neck and pulled him in for a long, long kiss. 

When they finally pulled away, sweat cooling to the point of discomfort, the sky was a solid blue and the edge of the sun had already cleared the horizon. The candles had burned down to misshapen hunks, burned out from the power of the spell, or the sudden burst of Castiel’s grace. Dean tossed their supplies into the center of the motel blanket and twisted them into a bulky package before jamming the whole arrangement into the duffle bag. 

As they silently worked to take down the spell’s scaffolding, lifeless earthstar dust stirred around their feet. 

“Think we got it all?” Dean asked, swiping ineffectually at a smear of dirt and dessicated mushroom on his ankle.

Castiel inhaled deeply, senses flying outward as he searched for traces of fairy magic. “Oh!” He froze like a deer scenting the air. “There is something.”

Dean swore under his breath, and tossed the duffle bag to the ground again in frustration, the duffle kicking detritus into the air. “Fuck,” he said. “I thought we had it. I thought I felt—“

“No. No,” Castiel was quick to interject. “I don’t sense the curse. I can find no traces of fairy magic. But, um. We should probably get dressed.” At Dean’s confused look he explained with a quick motion to the cabin. “She’s awake.”

Dean’s mouth fell open in surprise and then he was whirling around to locate his boxers and pants. They dressed quickly, their movements punctuated by their feet scuffing the ground and the halting return of birdsong to the surrounding woods. 

Castiel buttoned his shirt and debated whether to use his grace to cleanse his skin, or if Dean might be open to doing it the old fashioned way - with a shared shower. He noticed Beth Anders first as a flash of purple against the gray-brown mess of the cabin. 

“Hello?” she called. “Who’s there?” When she rounded the corner, Castiel saw that she was gray with exhaustion. Desiccated strands of mycelia and hunks of mushroom clung to her hair and stuck to her dress like burs. 

“Miss Anders?” Castiel called to her. “Beth?”

She stopped and turned to them, then her mouth dropped open and she took a stumbling step back. 

“It’s okay,” Dean told her, striding up alongside Castiel and tugging at the sleeves on his flannel. “You’re okay now. Aren’t you?”

She glanced over her shoulder, and Castiel could picture what she saw there: the hunter’s body ravaged by the fungus and the destroyed cabin hovering like a hulk over the clearing. “He tried to kill me,” she said. “I just did a few weather spells and sold a few powders for foot fungus, and he tried to kill me.”

“Foot fungus? Seriously?” Dean muttered and Castiel suppressed a smile. _Of course_ it would be something so mundane. 

“I know he tried to kill you,” Castiel said. “But you’re safe now.” And she did appear to be physically fine, if drained. He finished buttoning his shirt, and watched Dean cross the field of crumbling mushrooms and hold out both hands to Beth. Dean, brusque and terrifying at times, took Beth Anders’ hand and helped her limp away from the house. A fond smile tugged at his lips, irrepressible. 

Dean looked backwards. “Cas! You coming?” he asked in such a matter-of-fact, impatient tone that Castiel rolled his eyes expansively before gathering up the bag, looping his coat over his own arm, and following them back along the trail and out of the woods. 

The trail was a mess of dead mushrooms, the earth heaved in some areas, exposing roots and rapidly disintegrating mycelia. At the parked Impala, Beth insisted on walking the five blocks to her home by herself. She fished a key from her pocket, brushing away mushroom detritus with a vomitous look on her face. “Thanks,” she told them, nose wrinkling as she chipped a blackened smudge from a tooth on her house key. “Thanks for saving me. For everything you did. But I spent my whole life trying to find a quiet place where nobody’s going to bother me and…” She flicked plant matter from her dress. “This wasn’t exactly low key. I need to do some thinking about my next move. The last thing I need is another hunter, you feel me?”

“I understand,” Castiel told her gravely. “I hope you find a place you can call home.” He had found people who embodied that, and it made the world infinitely more tolerable. 

“Yeah,” she smiled a little, and shrugged one shoulder. “Me too.” Then, under her own power, she stalked towards her home. 

Castiel laid a hand on the sun-warmed hood of the Impala and watched her walk away. “You think she was telling the truth? That the hunter came after her for magical foot disease cures?”

Dean shrugged, then grimaced. “Some hunters don’t care what you do with it, they just don’t like the magic.” His brows knit. “I hope she can move on from this.”

“She has a coven to bolster. She’ll be alright. And the town’s small enough that all this might go unnoticed by the larger world. Especially if we get the word out that the case is closed,” Castiel said with more bluster than certainty. “Speaking of getting the word out,” Castiel sucked in a breath as he remembered. “Tayla?”

“Oh, shit.” Dean fumbled in his pocket for his phone and slipped it out, dialing her number. He waited for one ring, then two, features tightening in concern. And then Castiel heard it: Tayla’s voice issuing from the other end of the line. With his recovered powers, he could hear her easily. But Castiel still appreciated it when Dean hung up in a relief and filled him in on the conversation. “She’s fine,” Dean said. “Miraculously recovered. Doctor Kroup too. And the hospital is a good couple dozen miles out, at least. So I’m hoping that fungus is dead across the board.”

“Good,” Castiel said, then inhaled sharply when Dean took a quick step forward, effectively pinning him against the car. 

Dean grasped Castiel’s untucked shirt and reeled them into each other, pushing Castiel back against the warm side of the Impala. He dipped his nose to nuzzle against Castiel’s collarbone, then traced the lines of his shoulder inward until his could suck a kiss into his neck. 

Castiel sighed into the touch. “Dean?’ he said, bringing his hands up to play with the fine hairs at the nape of Dean’s neck.

“Mmm?”

“That was one hell of a spell.” 

Dean laughed, a warm blossom of breath staining a wide swath of Castiel’s skin with traces of _Dean_. “Fuck yeah,” he said approvingly. His fingers moved under the hem of Castiel’s shirt and he paused as he reached stickiness. 

“We should shower,” Castiel suggested, not needing to read his mind to see the question Dean was formulating about the mess. “I’d like to shower with you,” he said carefully. 

Dean seemed to understand, because his expression lifted, mouth softening into a smile too sweet to be a leer. “That can be arranged,” he said. He laid one more close-mouthed kiss to Castiel’s cheek, lips brushing back along his stubble. “Get in the car.” Dean practically purred the order. 

Castiel caught at the waistband of Dean’s pants, reeling him in closer before he could pull away. He parted his lips and tilted his chin, sinking against the car and pulling Dean down into him. He let Dean’s lips pass within an inch of his own, mouth parting in response and breath coming quick. Then Castiel smirked and sidestepped out of the embrace as nimbly as he might evade an outthrust weapon. “Get in the car,” he said, and laughed when Dean’s arousal turned to surprise. 

He walked around the car and slid into the passenger’s seat. When Dean settled next to him, Castiel said, “The wait will be worth your while.”

Dean reached for Castiel’s hand and pressed it into the leather between the seats. He met Castiel’s eye. “It already is,” he said softly. 

Castiel dropped his gaze to their joined hands, then it to Dean. It seemed impossible that, a mere day after their first declarations of love to each other he could love Dean more. But here they were. 

“I like very hot showers,” he said.

Dean winked. “Me too.” He withdrew his hand to start the car, then throw it into reverse to back out of quiet lot. “It’s important for couples to have shared interests,” he said in falsely idle tones. “What’re your feelings on pie?”

“I prefer savory. The flavor is more complex and—“

He was cut off by Dean’s outraged sputtering. “You and me,” Dean said, “are going on a detour on our way back home.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, oh. There’s a little place call Maybe’s Diner. Makes the best damn apple pie I’ve ever had. It’s gonna change your world.”

“Mmm, I’ll be the judge of that.” Castiel relaxed into the warm seat, reveling in the ease that lay between them as Dean described in rich and practically erotic detail, the charms of Maybe’s pie. 

At the motel they checked in with Sam, then showered and slept twined around each other like vines. Castiel let his grace simmer idly within so that his body could sink into slumber next to Dean - at least for a little while.

In the morning they left Morris and drove into the sunrise, headed for the eastern mountains worn low and smooth by the centuries. 

It was a roundabout way back home, if you went by conventional points on a map. But Castiel knew, as they drove into the new morning, that he was already there. Home rode with them, carried on the wind funneling around the car, passed with the breath between their lips, living in the magic of their shared touch. They tore across the hills, and Castiel stretched out his senses like wings spreading from the car. There was power there, in the soil under the skin of the earth, and banked in the trees. There was power in a warm touch and a firm kiss. In a bite of warm apple pie on a cool morning. Castiel let it fill him up higher than Heaven’s distant reach ever could.

He reached across the bench seat and slid his palm along Dean’s leg, loving how his knee tilted into the touch. There was power between them as strong as the pull of the Earth on their bodies, and Castiel had never felt so grateful to be alive and at Dean’s side. “I love you,” he said.

Dean smiled, and his feelings radiated from him, open and unprotected. “Love you,” he said. Baby growled beneath them, around him, as though the car were an extension of himself. Perhaps, Castiel mused, thinking about the the concept of connectedness, she was.

Together, Dean and Castiel prowled into the sunrise as its rays stroked a gorgeous clear day into being.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/whichstiel) and [Tumblr](http://whichstiel.tumblr.com/) @ whichstiel. You may also like the Supernatural recap and gif blog I co-write/curate, [Shirtless Sammy](https://shirtlesssammy.tumblr.com/).


End file.
